irftnttine    Sbttton 

THE  WRITINGS  OF 
MARK   TWAIN 

VOLUME  XXI 


FOLLOWING  THE  EQUATOR 

A  JOUK  AROUND  THE  WGRi 


BY 

MARK  TWAIN 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES— VOL.  II 


AN   INDIAN   RAILW 
TI 


ION   AT  TRAIN 


NEW  YORK 

GABRIEL  WES 

MCMXXni 


FOLLOWING  THE  EQUATOR 

A  JOURNEY  AROUND  THE  WORLD 


BY 

MARK  TWAIN 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES— VOL.  II 


NEW  YORK 

GABRIEL  WELLS 

MCMXXIH 


FOLLOWING  THE   EQUATOR.     VOL.    II 

Copyright,    1897  and   1899,   by  OLIVIA  L.   CLEMENS 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  CEYLON— THE  RADIANT,  INCOMPARABLE  EAST  .    .  i 

II.  BOMBAY — THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  COME  AGAIN  .     .  13 

III.  I  ENJOY  A  DIVINE  CALL 24 

IV.  MAJESTY  OF  THE  TOWERS  OF  SILENCE     ....  38 

V.  WE  MINGLE  WITH  HUMAN  FIREWORKS    ....  48 

VI.  THE  HOME  OF  THE  BLACK  DEATH 57 

VII.  JUGGERNAUT,  SUTTEE  AND  THUGGEE 64 

VIII.  SLEEPING-CARS,  PLAIN  BUT  PLEASANT 75 

IX.  I  RIDE  AN  ELEPHANT — BY  REQUEST   .     .    .    .    .  84 

X.  MURDERS  BY  WHOLESALE 98 

XL  HUNTING  MEN  FOR  MERE  SPORT 112 

XII.  THE  WIDOW  WHO  BURNED  GLADLY 125 

XIII.  ALLAHABAD  AND  THE  HOLY  FAIR 137 

XIV.  BAFFLING  HINDU  THEOLOGY 153 

XV.  How  TO  MAKE  SALVATION  SURE 163 

XVI.  GANGES,  THE  GREAT  PURIFIER 173 

XVII.  MERRYMAKING  IN  THE  TAJ  MAHAL 185 

XVIII.  OCHTERLONY— ALSO   THE   BLACK   HOLE        ....  196 

XIX.  How  VILE  is  THE  HEATHEN,  REALLY?     ....  205 

XX.  THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  DELIGHT     .    .    .    .  215 

XXI.  THE  SNAKE  AND  TIGER  DEATH-ROLL 223 

XXII.  FRIGHTFUL  DAYS  OF  THE  MUTINY 230 

XXIII.  EXAGGERATING  THE  TAJ 246 

XXIV.  SATAN  DRUNK;    LOSES  His  JOB 261 

XXV.  BABU  ERRORS  No  WORSE  THAN  OURS     ....  273 

XXVI.  AT  QUEER  MAURITIUS,  HOMEWARD  BOUND  .    .    .  285 

XXVII.  WHERE  MATCHES  WILL  NOT  LIGHT 297 

XXVIII.  WHAT  BARNUM  DID  FOR  SHAKESPEARE   ....  306 

v 


B 

* 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGB 

XXIX.  GOOD  WORK  OF  THE  DOUR  TRAPPISTS    .    .    .    .  318 

XXX.  THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  JAMESON'S  RAID 327 

XXXI.  WHY  THE  BOERS  BEAT  JAMESON 338 

XXXII.  THE  BOER  AS  HE  REALLY  Is 354 

XXXIII.  DIAMONDS  AND  CECIL  RHODES 366 

CONCLUSION — STRANGE  CASE  OF  DR.  BARRY    .    .  379 


VI 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

AN  INDIAN  RAILWAY-STATION  AT  TRAIN  TIME  .     .  Frontispiece 
EACH    CARRIED   AN   ARTICLE  AND   ONLY   ONE    .     .  Facing  p.    16 

"YOUR  HONOR  'LL  KNOW  THAT  DOG'S  DIMENSIONS"  .  "       94 

THE    WELL   OF    FATE "      164 

THE  MATE'S  SHADOW  FROZE  FAST  TO  THE  DECK   .  "      288 

THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  HUMAN  INSTINCTS  ....  "     322 


FOLLOWING 
THE  EQUATOR 


CHAPTER  I 

CEYLON THE  RADIANT,   INCOMPARABLE  EAST 

To  succeed  in  the  other  trades,  capacity  must  be  shown;  in  the  law,  concealment 
of  it  will  do.—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

MONDAY,  December  23,  1895.  Sailed  from 
Sydney  for  Ceylon  in  the  P.  &  O.  steamer 
Oceana.  A  Lascar  crew  mans  this  ship — the  first 
I  have  seen.  White  cotton  petticoat  and  pants; 
barefoot;  red  shawl  for  belt;  straw  cap,  brimless, 
on  head,  with  red  scarf  wound  around  it ;  complexion 
a  rich  dark  brown;  short  straight  black  hair;  whis 
kers  fine  and  silky;  lustrous  and  intensely  black. 
Mild,  good  faces;  willing  and  obedient  people; 
capable,  too;  but  are  said  to  go  into  hopeless  panics 
when  there  is  danger.  They  are  from  Bombay  and 
the  coast  thereabouts.  .  .  .  Left  some  of  the  trunks 
in  Sydney,  to  be  shipped  to  South  Africa  by  a  vessel 
advertised  to  sail  three  months  hence.  The  proverb 
says:  "Separate  not  yourself  from  your  baggage." 
.  .  .  This  Oceana  is  a  stately  big  ship,  luxuriously 
appointed.  She  has  spacious  promenade  decks. 
Large  rooms;  a  surpassingly  comfortable  ship.  The 


MARK    TWAIN 

officers*  library  is  well  selected;  a  ship's  library  is 
not  usually  that.  .  .  .  For  meals,  the  bugle-call, 
man-of-war  fashion;  a  pleasant  change  from  the 
terrible  gong.  .  .  .  Three  big  cats — very  friendly 
loafers;  they  wander  all  over  the  ship;  the  white 
one  follows  the  chief  steward  around  like  a  dog. 
There  is  also  a  basket  of  kittens.  One  of  these  cats 
goes  ashore,  in  port,  in  England,  Australia,  and  India, 
to  see  how  his  various  families  are  getting  along, 
and  is  seen  no  more  till  the  ship  is  ready  to  sail. 
No  one  knows  how  he  finds  out  the  sailing-date,  but 
no  doubt  he  comes  down  to  the  dock  every  day  and 
takes  a  look,  and  when  he  sees  baggage  and  passen 
gers  flocking  in,  recognizes  that  it  is  time  to  get 
aboard.  This  is  what  the  sailors  believe.  .  .  .  The 
Chief  Engineer  has  been  in  the  China  and  India 
trade  thirty-three  years,  and  has  had  but  three 
Christmases  at  home  in  that  time.  .  .  .  Conversa 
tional  items  at  dinner:  " Mocha!  sold  all  over  the 
world!  It  is  not  true.  In  fact,  very  few  foreigners 
except  the  Emperor  of  Russia  have  ever  seen  a  grain 
of  it,  or  ever  will,  while  they  live."  Another  man 
said:  "There  is  no  sale  in  Australia  for  Australian 
wine.  But  it  goes  to  France  and  comes  back  with  a 
French  label  on  it,  and  then  they  buy  it."  I  have 
heard  that  the  most  of  the  French-labeled  claret  in 
New  York  is  made  in  California.  And  I  remember 
what  Professor  S.  told  me  once  about  Veuve  Clicquot 
— if  that  was  the  wine,  and  I  think  it  was.  He  was 
the  guest  of  a  great  wine  merchant  whose  town  was 
quite  near  that  vineyard,  and  this  merchant  asked 
him  if  very  much  V.  C.  was  drunk  in  America. 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

"Oh,  yes/'  said  S.,  "a  great  abundance  of  it." 

"Is  it  easy  to  be  had?" 

"Oh,  yes — easy  as  water.  All  first  and  second 
class  hotels  have  it." 

"What  do  you  pay  for  it?" 

"It  depends  on  the  style  of  the  hotel — from 
fifteen  to  twenty-five  francs  a  bottle." 

"Oh,  fortunate  country!  Why,  it's  worth  one 
hundred  francs  right  here  on  the  ground." 

"No." 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  mean  that  we  are  drinking  a  bogus 
Veuve  Clicquot  over  there?" 

"Yes — and  there  was  never  a  bottle  of  the  genuine 
in  America  since  Columbus's  time.  That  wine  all 
conies  from  a  little  bit  of  a  patch  of  ground  which 
isn't  big  enough  to  raise  many  bottles;  and  all  of  it 
that  is  produced  goes  every  year  to  one  person — 
the  Emperor  of  Russia.  He  takes  the  whole  crop 
in  advance,  be  it  big  or  little." 

January  4,  1896.  Christmas  in  Melbourne,  New 
Year's  Day  in  Adelaide,  and  saw  most  of  the  friends 
again  in  both  places.  .  .  .  Lying  here  at  anchor  all 
day — Albany  (King  George's  Sound),  Western  Aus 
tralia.  It  is  a  perfectly  land-locked  harbor,  or 
roadstead — spacious  to  look  at,  but  not  deep  water. 
Desolate-looking  rocks  and  scarred  hills.  Plenty  of 
ships  arriving  now,  rushing  to  the  new  gold-fields. 
The  papers  are  full  of  wonderful  tales  of  the  sort 
always  to  be  heard  in  connection  with  new  gold  dig 
gings.  A  sample:  a  youth  staked  out  a  claim  and 
tried  to  sell  half  for  five  pounds;  no  takers;  he  stuck 

3 


MARK    TWAIN 

to  it  fourteen  days,  starving,  then  struck  it  rich  and 
sold  out  for  ten  thousand  pounds.  .  .  .  About  sun 
set,  strong  breeze  blowing,  got  up  the  anchor.  We 
were  in  a  small  deep  puddle,  with  a  narrow  channel 
leading  out  of  it,  minutely  buoyed,  to  the  sea.  I 
stayed  on  deck  to  see  how  we  were  going  to  manage 
it  with  such  a  big  ship  and  such  a  strong  wind.  On 
the  bridge  our  giant  captain,  in  uniform;  at  his  side 
a  little  pilot  in  elaborately  gold-laced  uniform;  on 
the  forecastle  a  white  mate  and  quartermaster  or 
two,  and  a  brilliant  crowd  of  lascars  standing  by 
for  business.  Our  stern  was  pointing  straight  at  the 
head  of  the  channel;  so  we  must  turn  entirely  around 
in  the  puddle — and  the  wind  blowing  as  described. 
It  was  done,  and  beautifully.  It  was  done  by  help 
of  a  jib.  We  stirred  up  much  mud,  but  did  not 
touch  the  bottom.  We  turned  right  around  in  our 
tracks — a  seeming  impossibility.  We  had  several 
casts  of  quarter-less  5,  and  one  cast  of  half  4 — 27 
feet;  we  were  drawing  26  astern.  By  the  time  we 
were  entirely  around  and  pointed,  the  first  buoy  was 
not  more  than  a  hundred  yards  in  front  of  us.  It 
was  a  fine  piece  of  work,  and  I  was  the  only  passen 
ger  that  saw  it.  However,  the  others  got  their 
dinner;  the  P.  &  O.  Company  got  mine.  .  .  . 
More  cats  developed.  Smythe  says  it  is  a  British 
law  that  they  must  be  carried;  and  he  instanced  a 
case  of  a  ship  not  allowed  to  sail  till  she  sent  for  a 
couple.  The  bill  came,  too:  "Debtor,  to  two  cats, 
twenty  shillings."  .  .  .  News  comes  that  within  this 
week  Siam  has  acknowledged  herself  to  be,  in  effect, 
a  French  province.  It  seems  plain  that  all  savage 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

and  semi-civilized  countries  are  going  to  be  grabbed. 
...  A  vulture  on  board;  bald,  red,  queer-shaped 
head,  featherless  red  places  here  and  there  on  his 
body,  intense  great  black  eyes  set  in  featherless  rims 
of  inflamed  flesh;  dissipated  look;  a  businesslike 
style,  a  selfish,  conscienceless,  murderous  aspect — 
the  very  look  of  a  professional  assassin,  and  yet  a 
bird  which  does  no  murder.  What  was  the  use  of 
getting  him  up  in  that  tragic  style  for  so  innocent  a 
trade  as  his?  For  this  one  isn't  the  sort  that  wars 
upon  the  living,  his  diet  is  offal — and  the  more  out 
of  date  it  is  the  better  he  likes  it.  Nature  should 
give  him  a  suit  of  rusty  black;  then  he  would  be 
all  right,  for  he  would  look  like  an  undertaker  and 
would  harmonize  with  his  business;  whereas  the 
way  he  is  now  he  is  horribly  out  of  true. 

January  5.  At  nine  this  morning  we  passed  Cape 
Leeuwin  (lioness)  and  ceased  from  our  long  due- 
west  course  along  the  southern  shore  of  Australia. 
Turning  this  extreme  southwestern  corner,  we  now 
take  a  long  straight  slant  nearly  N.W.,  without  a 
break,  for  Ceylon.  As  we  speed  northward  it  will 
grow  hotter  very  fast — but  is  isn't  chilly,  now. 
.  .  .  The  vulture  is  from  the  public  menagerie 
at  Adelaide — a  great  and  interesting  collection.  It 
was  there  that  we  saw  the  baby  tiger  solemnly  spread 
ing  its  mouth  and  trying  to  roar  like  its  majestic 
mother.  It  swaggered,  scowling,  back  and  forth  on 
its  short  legs  just  as  it  had  seen  her  do  on  her  long 
ones,  and  now  and  then  snarling  viciously,  exposing 
its  teeth,  with  a  threatening  lift  of  its  upper  lip  and 
bristling  mustache;  and  when  it  thought  it  was 

5 


MARK    TWAIN 

impressing  the  visitors,  it  would  spread  its  mouth 
wide  and  do  that  screechy  cry  which  it  meant  for  a 
roar,  but  which  did  not  deceive.  It  took  itself  quite 
seriously,  and  was  lovably  comical.  And  there  was 
a  hyena — an  ugly  creature;  as  ugly  as  the  tiger- 
kitty  was  pretty.  It  repeatedly  arched  its  back  and 
delivered  itself  of  such  a  human  cry;  a  startling 
resemblance;  a  cry  which  was  just  that  of  a  grown 
person  badly  hurt.  In  the  dark  one  would  assuredly 
go  to  its  assistance  —  and  be  disappointed.  .  .  . 
Many  friends  of  Australasian  Federation  on  board. 
They  feel  sure  that  the  good  day  is  not  far  off,  now. 
But  there  seems  to  be  a  party  that  would  go  further — 
have  Australasia  cut  loose  from  the  British  Empire 
and  set  up  housekeeping  on  her  own  hook.  It 
seems  an  unwise  idea.  They  point  to  the  United 
States,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  cases  lack  a  good 
deal  of  being  alike.  Australasia  governs  herself 
wholly — there  is  no  interference;  and  her  commerce 
and  manufactures  are  not  oppressed  in  any  way.  If 
our  case  had  been  the  same  we  should  not  have  gone 
out  when  we  did. 

January  13.  Unspeakably  hot.  The  equator  is 
arriving  again.  We  are  within  eight  degrees  of  it. 
Ceylon  present.  Dear  me,  it  is  beautiful!  And 
most  sumptuously  tropical,  as  to  character  of  foliage 
and  opulence  of  it.  "What  though  the  spicy  breezes 
blow  soft  o'er  Ceylon's  isle" — an  eloquent  line,  an 
incomparable  line;  it  says  little,  but  conveys  whole 
libraries  of  sentiment,  and  Oriental  charm  and 
mystery,  and  tropic  deliciousness — a  line  that  quivers 
and  tingles  with  a  thousand  unexpressed  and  inex- 

6 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

pressible  things,  things  that  haunt  one  and  find  no 
articulate  voice.  .  .  .  Colombo,  the  capital.  An 
Oriental  town,  most  manifestly;  and  fascinating. 
...  In  this  palatial  ship  the  passengers  dress  for 
dinner.  The  ladies'  toilettes  make  a  fine  display  of 
color,  and  this  is  in  keeping  with  the  elegance  of  the 
vessel's  furnishings  and  the  flooding  brilliancies  of 
the  electric  light.  On  the  stormy  Atlantic  one  never 
sees  a  man  in  evening  dress,  except  at  the  rarest 
intervals;  and  then  there  is  only  one,  not  two;  and 
he  shows  up  but  once  on  a  voyage — the  night  before 
the  ship  makes  port — the  night  when  they  have 
the  "concert"  and  do  the  amateur  wailings  and 
recitations.  He  is  the  tenor,  as  a  rule.  .  .  .  There 
has  been  a  deal  of  cricket-playing  on  board;  it 
seems  a  queer  game  for  a  ship,  but  they  inclose 
the  promenade  deck  with  nettings  and  keep  the  ball 
from  flying  overboard,  and  the  sport  goes  very  well, 
and  is  properly  violent  and  exciting.  .  .  .  We  must 
part  from  this  vessel  here. 

January  14.  Hotel  Bristol.  Servant  Brompy. 
Alert,  gentle,  smiling,  winning  young  brown  creature 
as  ever  was.  Beautiful  shining  black  hair  combed 
back  like  a  woman's,  and  knotted  at  the  back  of  his 
head  —  tortoise-shell  comb  in  it,  sign  that  he  is  a 
Singhalese;  slender,  shapely  form;  jacket;  under  it 
is  a  beltless  and  flowing  white  cotton  gown — from 
neck  straight  to  heel ;  he  and  his  outfit  quite  unmas- 
culine.  It  was  an  embarrassment  to  undress  before 
him. 

We  drove  to  the  market,  using  the  Japanese  jin- 
rikisha — our  first  acquaintanceship  with  it.  It  is  a 

7 


MARK     TWAIN 

light  cart,  with  a  native  to  draw  it.  He  makes  good 
speed  for  half  an  hour,  but  it  is  hard  work  for  him; 
he  is  too  slight  for  it.  After  the  half -hour  there  is  no 
more  pleasure  for  you;  your  attention  is  all  on  the 
man,  just  as  it  would  be  on  a  tired  horse,  and  neces 
sarily  your  sympathy  is  there,  too.  There's  a  plenty 
of  these  'rikishas,  and  the  tariff  is  incredibly  cheap. 

I  was  in  Cairo  years  ago.  That  was  Oriental,  but 
there  was  a  lack.  When  you  are  in  Florida  or  New 
Orleans  you  are  in  the  South — that  is  granted;  but 
you  are  not  in  the  South;  you  are  in  a  modified 
South,  a  tempered  South.  Cairo  was  a  tempered 
Orient — an  Orient  with  an  indefinite  something 
wanting.  That  feeling  was  not  present  in  Ceylon. 
Ceylon  was  Oriental  in  the  last  measure  of  com 
pleteness — utterly  Oriental;  also  utterly  tropical; 
and  indeed  to  one's  unreasoning  spiritual  sense  the 
two  things  belong  together.  All  the  requisites  were 
present.  The  costumes  were  right;  the  black  and 
brown  exposures,  unconscious  of  immodesty,  were 
right;  the  juggler  was  there,  with  his  basket,  his 
snakes,  his  mongoose,  and  his  arrangements  for 
growing  a  tree  from  seed  to  foliage  and  ripe  fruitage 
before  one's  eyes;  in  sight  were  plants  and  flowers 
familiar  to  one  on  books  but  in  no  other  way — 
celebrated,  desirable,  strange,  but  in  production  re 
stricted  to  the  hot  belt  of  the  equator;  and  out  a 
little  way  in  the  country  were  the  proper  deadly 
snakes,  and  fierce  beasts  of  prey,  and  the  wild 
elephant  and  the  monkey.  And  there  was  that 
swoon  in  the  air  which  one  associates  with  the  tropics, 
and  that  smother  of  heat,  heavy  with  odors  of  un- 

8 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

known  flowers,  and  that  sudden  invasion  of  purple 
gloom  fissured  with  lightnings — then  the  tumult  of 
crashing  thunder  and  the  downpour — and  presently 
all  sunny  and  smiling  again;  all  these  things  were 
there;  the  conditions  were  complete,  nothing  was 
lacking.  And  away  off  in  the  deeps  of  the  jungle 
and  in  the  remotenesses  of  the  mountains  were  the 
ruined  cities  and  moldering  temples,  mysterious 
relics  of  the  pomps  of  a  forgotten  time  and  a  vanished 
race — and  this  was  as  it  should  be,  also,  for  nothing 
is  quite  satisfyingly  Oriental  that  lacks  the  somber 
and  impressive  qualities  of  mystery  and  antiquity. 
The  drive  through  the  town  and  out  to  the  Galle 
Face  by  the  seashore,  what  a  dream  it  was  of  tropical 
splendors  of  bloom  and  blossom,  and  Oriental  con 
flagrations  of  costume!  The  walking  groups  of  men, 
women,  boys,  girls,  babies — each  individual  was  a 
flame,  each  group  a  house  afire  for  color.  And 
such  stunning  colors,  such  intensely  vivid  colors, 
such  rich  and  exquisite  minglings  and  fusings  of 
rainbows  and  lightnings !  And  all  harmonious,  all  in 
perfect  taste ;  never  a  discordant  note ;  never  a  color 
on  any  person  swearing  at  another  color  on  him  or 
failing  to  harmonize  faultlessly  with  the  colors  of 
any  group  the  wearer  might  join.  The  stuffs  were 
silk — thin,  soft,  delicate,  clinging;  and,  as  a  rule,  each 
piece  a  solid  color:  a  splendid  green,  a  splendid  blue, 
a  splendid  yellow,  a  splendid  purple,  a  splendid 
ruby,  deep  and  rich  with  smoldering  fires  —  they 
swept  continuously  by  in  crowds  and  legions  and 
multitudes,  glowing,  flashing,  burning,  radiant;  and 
every  five  seconds  came  a  burst  of  blinding  red  that 

9 


MARK    TWAIN 

made  a  body  catch  his  breath,  and  filled  his  heart 
with  joy.  And  then,  the  unimaginable  grace  of 
those  costumes!  Sometimes  a  woman's  whole  dress 
was  but  a  scarf  wound  about  her  person  and  her 
head,  sometimes  a  man's  was  but  a  turban  and  a 
careless  rag  or  two — in  both  cases  generous  areas 
of  polished  dark  skin  showing — but  always  the 
arrangement  compelled  the  homage  of  the  eye  and 
made  the  heart  sing  for  gladness. 

I  can  see  it  to  this  day,  that  radiant  panorama, 
that  wilderness  of  rich  color,  that  incomparable 
dissolving-view  of  harmonious  tints,  and  lithe  half- 
covered  forms,  and  beautiful  brown  faces,  and  gra 
cious  and  graceful  gestures  and  attitudes  and  move 
ments,  free,  unstudied,  barren  of  stiffness  and 
restraint,  and — 

Just  then,  into  this  dream  of  fairyland  and  para 
dise  a  grating  dissonance  was  injected.  Out  of  a 
missionary  school  came  marching,  two  and  two,  six 
teen  prim  and  pious  little  Christian  black  girls, 
Europeanly  clothed — dressed,  to  the  last  detail,  as 
they  would  have  been  dressed  on  a  summer  Sunday 
in  an  English  or  American  village.  Those  clothes 
— oh,  they  were  unspeakably  ugly !  Ugly,  barbarous, 
destitute  of  taste,  destitute  of  grace,  repulsive  as  a 
shroud.  I  looked  at  my  women -folk's  clothes — 
just  full-grown  duplicates  of  the  outrages  disguising 
those  poor  little  abused  creatures — and  was  ashamed 
to  be  seen  in  the  street  with  them.  Then  I  looked 
at  my  own  clothes,  and  was  ashamed  to  be  seen  in 
the  street  with  myself. 

However,  we  must  put  up  with  our  clothes  as  they 

10 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

are — they  have  their  reason  for  existing.  They  are 
on  us  to  expose  us — to  advertise  what  we  wear  them 
to  conceal.  They  are  a  sign;  a  sign  of  insincerity; 
a  sign  of  suppressed  vanity;  a  pretense  that  we 
despise  gorgeous  colors  and  the  graces  of  harmony 
and  form;  and  we  put  them  on  to  propagate  that 
lie  and  back  it  up.  But  we  do  not  deceive  our 
neighbor;  and  when  we  step  into  Ceylon  we  realize 
that  we  have  not  even  deceived  ourselves.  We  do 
love  brilliant  colors  and  graceful  costumes;  and  at 
home  we  will  turn  out  in  a  storm  to  see  them  when 
the  procession  goes  by — and  envy  the  wearers.  We 
go  to  the  theater  to  look  at  them  and  grieve  that  we 
can't  be  clothed  like  that.  We  go  to  the  King's 
ball,  when  we  get  a  chance,  and  are  glad  of  a  sight 
of  the  splendid  uniforms  and  the  glittering  orders. 
When  we  are  granted  permission  to  attend  an  im 
perial  drawing-room  we  shut  ourselves  up  in  private 
and  parade  around  in  the  theatrical  court-dress  by 
the  hour,  and  admire  ourselves  in  the  glass,  and  are 
utterly  happy;  and  every  member  of  every  gover 
nor's  staff  in  democratic  America  does  the  same 
with  his  grand  new  uniform — and  if  he  is  not  watched 
he  will  get  himself  photographed  in  it,  too.  When 
I  see  the  Lord  Mayor's  footman  I  am  dissatisfied 
with  my  lot.  Yes,  our  clothes  are  a  lie,  and  have 
been  nothing  short  of  that  these  hundred  years. 
They  are  insincere,  they  are  the  ugly  and  appro 
priate  outward  exposure  of  an  inward  sham  and  a 
moral  decay. 

The  last  little  brown  boy  I  chanced  to  notice  in 
the  crowds  and  swarms  of  Colombo  had  nothing 

ii 


MARK     TWAIN 

on  but  a  twine  string  around  his  waist,  but  in  my 
memory  the  frank  honesty  of  his  costume  still  stands 
out  in  pleasant  contrast  with  the  odious  flummery 
in  which  the  little  Sunday-school  dowdies  were 
masquerading. 


12 


CHAPTER  II 

BOMBAY THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  COME  AGAIN 

Prosperity  is  the  best  protector  of  principle. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

JT*VENING—i4th.  Sailed  in  the  Rosetta.  This 
i  V  is  a  poor  old  ship,  and  ought  to  be  insured  and 
sunk.  As  in  the  Oceana,  just  so  here:  everybody 
dresses  for  dinner;  they  make  it  a  sort  of  pious 
duty.  These  fine  and  formal  costumes  are  a  rather 
conspicuous  contrast  to  the  poverty  and  shabbiness 
of  the  surroundings.  ...  If  you  want  a  slice  of  a 
lime  at  four-o'clock  tea,  you  must  sign  an  order  on 
the  bar.  Limes  cost  fourteen  cents  a  barrel. 

January  18.  We  have  been  running  up  the 
Arabian  Sea,  latterly.  Closing  up  on  Bombay  now, 
and  due  to  arrive  this  evening. 

January  20.  Bombay!  A  bewitching  place,  a 
bewildering  place,  an  enchanting  place — the  Arabian 
Nights  come  again !  It  is  a  vast  city ;  contains  about 
a  million  inhabitants.  Natives,  they  are,  with  a 
slight  sprinkling  of  white  people — not  enough  to  have 
the  slightest  modifying  effect  upon  the  massed  dark 
complexion  of  the  public.  It  is  winter  here,  yet 
the  weather  is  the  divine  weather  of  June,  and  the 
foliage  is  the  fresh  and  heavenly  foliage  of  June. 
There  is  a  rank  of  noble  great  shade  trees  across 
the  way  from  the  hotel,  and  under  them  sit  groups 
of  picturesque  natives  of  both  sexes ;  and  the  juggler 

13 


MARK     TWAIN 

in  his  turban  is  there  with  his  snakes  and  his  magic; 
and  all  day  long  the  cabs  and  the  multitudinous 
varieties  of  costumes  flock  by.  It  does  not  seem  as 
if  one  could  ever  get  tired  of  watching  this  moving 
show,  this  shining  and  shifting  spectacle.  ...  In 
the  great  bazar  the  pack  and  jam  of  natives  was 
marvelous,  the  sea  of  rich-colored  turbans  and 
draperies  an  inspiring  sight,  and  the  quaint  and 
showy  Indian  architecture  was  just  the  right  setting 
for  it.  Toward  sunset  another  show;  this  is  the 
drive  around  the  seashore  to  Malabar  Point,  where 
Lord  Sandhurst,  the  Governor  of  the  Bombay  Presi 
dency,  lives.  Parsee  palaces  all  along  the  first  part 
of  the  drive;  and  past  them  all  the  world  is  driving; 
the  private  carriages  of  wealthy  Englishmen  and 
natives  of  rank  are  manned  by  a  driver  and  three 
footmen  in  stunning  oriental  liveries — two  of  these 
turbaned  statues  standing  up  behind,  as  fine  as 
monuments.  Sometimes  even  the  public  carriages 
have  this  superabundant  crew,  slightly  modified — 
one  to  drive,  one  to  sit  by  and  see  it  done,  and  one 
to  stand  up  behind  and  yell — yell  when  there  is 
anybody  in  the  way,  and  for  practice  when  there 
isn't.  It  all  helps  to  keep  up  the  liveliness  and 
augment  the  general  sense  of  swiftness  and  energy 
and  confusion  and  pow-wow. 

In  the  region  of  Scandal  Point — felicitous  name 
— where  there  are  handy  rocks  to  sit  on  and  a  noble 
view  of  the  sea  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other 
the  passing  and  repassing  whirl  and  tumult  of  gay 
carriages,  are  great  groups  of  comfortably  off  Parsee 
women — perfect  flower-beds  of  brilliant  color,  a  fasci- 

14 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

nating  spectacle.  Tramp,  tramp,  tramping  along 
the  road,  in  singles,  couples,  groups,  and  gangs,  you 
have  the  working-man  and  the  working- woman — but 
not  clothed  like  ours.  Usually  the  man  is  a  nobly 
built  great  athlete,  with  not  a  rag  on  but  his  loin- 
handkerchief;  his  color  a  deep  dark  brown,  his  skin 
satin,  his  rounded  muscles  knobbing  it  as  if  it  had 
eggs  under  it.  Usually  the  woman  is  a  slender  and 
shapely  creature,  as  erect  as  a  lightning-rod,  and 
she  has  but  one  thing  on — a  bright-colored  piece  of 
stuff  which  is  wound  about  her  head  and  her  body 
down  nearly  half-way  to  her  knees,  and  which  clings 
like  her  own  skin.  Her  legs  and  feet  are  bare,  and  so 
are  her  arms,  except  for  her  fanciful  bunches  of  loose 
silver  rings  on  her  ankles  and  on  her  arms.  She 
has  jewelry  bunched  on  the  side  of  her  nose  also, 
and  showy  cluster-rings  on  her  toes.  When  she 
undresses  for  bed  she  takes  off  her  jewelry,  I  suppose. 
If  she  took  off  anything  more  she  would  catch  cold. 
As  a  rule,  she  has  a  large  shiny  brass  water-jar  of 
graceful  shape  on  her  head,  and  one  of  her  naked 
arms  curves  up  and  the  hand  holds  it  there.  She 
is  so  straight,  so  erect,  and  she  steps  with  such  style, 
and  such  easy  grace  and  dignity;  and  her  curved 
arm  and  her  brazen  jar  are  such  a  help  to  the  picture 
— indeed,  our  working-women  cannot  begin  with  her 
as  a  road  decoration. 

It  is  all  color,  bewitching  color,  enchanting  color — 
everywhere — all  around — all  the  way  around  the 
curving  great  opaline  bay  clear  to  Government 
House,  where  the  turbaned  big  native  chuprassies 
stand  grouped  in  state  at  the  door  in  their  robes  of 

15 


MARK     TWAIN 

fiery  red,  and  do  most  properly  and  stunningly  finish 
up  the  splendid  show  and  make  it  theatrically  com 
plete.  I  wish  I  were  a  chuprassy. 

This  is  indeed  India;  the  land  of  dreams  and  ro 
mance,  of  fabulous  wealth  and  fabulous  poverty, 
of  splendor  and  rags,  of  palaces  and  hovels,  of  famine 
and  pestilence,  of  genii  and  giants  and  Aladdin 
lamps,  of  tigers  and  elephants,  the  cobra  and  the 
jungle,  the  country  of  a  hundred  nations  and  a 
hundred  tongues,  of  a  thousand  religions  and  two 
million  gods,  cradle  of  the  human  race,  birthplace 
of  human  speech,  mother  of  history,  grandmother  of 
legend,  great-grandmother  of  tradition,  whose  yes 
terdays  bear  date  with  the  moldering  antiquities 
of  the  rest  of  the  nations — the  one  sole  country  under 
the  sun  that  is  endowed  with  an  imperishable  interest 
for  alien  prince  and  alien  peasant,  for  lettered  and 
ignorant,  wise  and  fool,  rich  and  poor,  bond  and  free, 
the  one  land  that  all  men  desire  to  see,  and  having 
seen  once,  by  even  a  glimpse,  would  not  give  that 
glimpse  for  the  shows  of  all  the  rest  of  the  globe 
combined. 

Even  now,  after  the  lapse  of  a  year,  the  delirium 
of  those  days  in  Bombay  has  not  left  me,  and  I  hope 
never  will.  It  was  all  new,  no  detail  of  it  hackneyed. 
And  India  did  not  wait  for  morning,  it  began  at 
the  hotel — straight  away.  The  lobbies  and  halls 
were  full  of  turbaned  and  fez'd  and  embroidered, 
cap'd,  and  barefooted,  and  cotton-clad  dark  natives, 
some  of  them  rushing  about,  others  at  rest  squatting, 
or  sitting  on  the  ground;  some  of  them  chattering 
with  energy,  others  still  and  dreamy;  in  the  dining- 

16 


O3IH5IAD  HDA3 


!y  and  stunningly  finish 
i*w  and  make  it  theati 

: 

«&:  'lllOUS    p 

ovels,  of  famine 
nd  Aladdin 
cobra  and  the 
"ons  and  a 
two 


EACH  CARRIED  AN  ARTICLE  AND  ONLY  ONE 


that 
of  the  globe 

hope 
oyed. 

Bering 
i  he  dining- 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

room  every  man's  own  private  native  servant 
standing  behind  his  chair,  and  dressed  for  a  part  in 
the  Arabian  Nights. 

Our  rooms  were  high  up,  on  the  front.  A  white 
man — he  was  a  burly  German — went  up  with  us, 
and  brought  three  natives  along  to  see  to  arranging 
things.  About  fourteen  others  followed  in  proces 
sion,  with  the  hand-baggage;  each  carried  an  article 
— and  only  one;  a  bag,  in  some  cases,  in  other  cases 
less.  One  strong  native  carried  my  overcoat,  another 
a  parasol,  another  a  box  of  cigars,  another  a  novel, 
and  the  last  man  in  the  procession  had  no  load 
but  a  fan.  It  was  all  done  with  earnestness  and 
sincerity,  there  was  not  a  smile  in  the  procession 
from  the  head  of  it  to  the  tail  of  it.  Each  man 
waited  patiently,  tranquilly,  in  no  sort  of  hurry,  till 
one  of  us  found  time  to  give  him  a  copper,  then  he 
bent  his  head  reverently,  touched  his  forehead  with 
his  fingers,  and  went  his  way.  They  seemed  a  soft 
and  gentle  race,  and  there  was  something  both 
winning  and  touching  about  their  demeanor. 

There  was  a  vast  glazed  door  which  opened  upon 
the  balcony.  It  needed  closing,  or  cleaning,  or  some 
thing,  and  a  native  got  down  on  his  knees  and  went 
to  work  at  it.  He  seemed  to  be  doing  it  well  enough, 
but  perhaps  he  wasn't,  for  the  burly  German  put 
on  a  look  that  betrayed  dissatisfaction,  then  without 
explaining  what  was  wrong,  gave  the  native  a  brisk 
cuff  on  the  jaw  and  then  told  him  where  the  defect 
was.  It  seemed  such  a  shame  to  do  that  before  us 
all.  The  native  took  it  with  meekness,  saying 
nothing,  and  not  showing  in  his  face  or  manner  any 

17 


MARK     TWAIN 

resentment.  I  had  not  seen  the  like  of  this  for 
fifty  years.  It  carried  me  back  to  my  boyhood, 
and  flashed  upon  me  the  forgotten  fact  that  this 
was  the  usual  way  of  explaining  one's  desires  to  a 
slave.  I  was  able  to  remember  that  the  method 
seemed  right  and  natural  to  me  in  those  days,  I 
being  born  to  it  and  unaware  that  elsewhere  there 
were  other  methods ;  but  I  was  also  able  to  remember 
that  those  unresented  cuffings  made  me  sorry  for 
the  victim  and  ashamed  for  the  punisher.  My  father 
was  a  refined  and  kindly  gentleman,  very  grave, 
rather  austere,  of  rigid  probity,  a  sternly  just  and 
upright  man,  albeit  he  attended  no  church  and  never 
spoke  of  religious  matters,  and  had  no  part  nor  lot 
in  the  pious  joys  of  his  Presbyterian  family,  nor  ever 
seemed  to  suffer  from  this  deprivation.  He  laid  his 
hand  upon  me  in  punishment  only  twice  in  his  life, 
and  then  not  heavily;  once  for  telling  him  a  lie — 
which  surprised  me,  and  showed  me  how  unsuspi 
cious  he  was,  for  that  was  not  my  maiden  effort. 
He  punished  me  those  two  times  only,  and  never  any 
other  member  of  the  family  at  all;  yet  every  now 
and  then  he  cuffed  our  harmless  slave-boy,  Lewis, 
for  trifling  little  blunders  and  awkwardnesses.  My 
father  had  passed  his  life  among  the  slaves  from  his 
cradle  up,  and  his  cuffings  proceeded  from  the 
custom  of  the  time,  not  from  his  nature.  When  I 
was  ten  years  old  I  saw  a  man  fling  a  lump  of  iron- 
ore  at  a  slave-man  in  anger,  for  merely  doing  some 
thing  awkwardly — as  if  that  were  a  crime.  It 
bounded  from  the  man's  skull,  and  the  man  fell  and 
never  spoke  again.  He  was  dead  in  an  hour.  I 

18 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

knew  the  man  had  a  right  to  kill  his  slave  if  he 
wanted  to,  and  yet  it  seemed  a  pitiful  thing  and 
somehow  wrong,  though  why  wrong  I  was  not  deep 
enough  to  explain  if  I  had  been  asked  to  do  it. 
Nobody  in1  the  village  approved  of  that  murder,  but 
of  course  no  one  said  much  about  it. 

It  is  curious — the  space-annihilating  power  of 
thought.  For  just  one  second,  all  that  goes  to  make 
the  me  in  me  was  in  a  Missourian  village,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  vividly  seeing  again  these 
forgotten  pictures  of  fifty  years  ago,  and  wholly  un 
conscious  of  all  things  but  just  those;  and  in  the 
next  second  I  was  back  in  Bombay,  and  that  kneeling 
native's  smitten  cheek  was  not  done  tingling  yet! 
Back  to  boyhood — fifty  years;  back  to  age  again, 
another  fifty;  and  a  flight  equal  to  the  circumference 
of  the  globe — all  in  two  seconds  by  the  watch! 

Some  natives — I  don't  remember  how  many — 
went  into  my  bedroom,  now,  and  put  things  to  rights 
and  arranged  the  mosquito-bar,  and  I  went  to  bed  to 
nurse  my  cough.  It  was  about  nine  in  the  evening. 
What  a  state  of  things!  For  three  hours  the  yelling 
and  shouting  of  natives  in  the  hall  continued,  along 
with  the  velvety  patter  of  their  swift  bare  feet — 
what  a  racket  it  was !  They  were  yelling  orders  and 
messages  down  three  flights.  Why,  in  the  matter 
of  noise  it  amounted  to  a  riot,  an  insurrection,  a 
revolution.  And  then  there  were  other  noises  mixed 
up  with  these  and  at  intervals  tremendously  accent 
ing  them — roofs  falling  in,  I  judged,  windows  smash 
ing,  persons  being  murdered,  crows  squawking,  and 
deriding,  and  cursing,  canaries  screeching,  monkeys 

19 


MARK    TWAIN 

jabbering,  macaws  blaspheming,  and  every  now  and 
then  fiendish  bursts  of  laughter  and  explosions  of 
dynamite.  By  midnight  I  had  suffered  all  the 
different  kinds  of  shocks  there  are,  and  knew  that  I 
could  never  more  be  disturbed  by  them,  either 
isolated  or  in  combination.  Then  came  peace — 
stillness  deep  and  solemn — and  lasted  till  five. 

Then  it  all  broke  loose  again.  And  who  restarted 
it?  The  Bird  of  Birds — the  Indian  crow.  I  came 
to  know  him  well,  by  and  by,  and  be  infatuated  with 
him.  I  suppose  he  is  the  hardest  lot  that  wears 
feathers.  Yes,  and  the  cheerfulest,  and  the  best 
satisfied  with  himself.  He  never  arrived  at  what 
he  is  by  any  careless  process,  or  any  sudden  one; 
he  is  a  work  of  art,  and  "art  is  long'*;  he  is  the 
product  of  immemorial  ages,  and  of  deep  calculation ; 
one  can't  make  a  bird  like  that  in  a  day.  He  has 
been  reincarnated  more  times  than  Shiva;  and  he 
has  kept  a  sample  of  each  incarnation,  and  fused 
it  into  his  constitution.  In  the  course  of  his  evolu 
tionary  promotions,  his  sublime  march  toward  ulti 
mate  perfection,  he  has  been  a  gambler,  a  low 
comedian,  a  dissolute  priest,  a  fussy  woman,  a  black 
guard,  a  scoffer,  a  liar,  a  thief,  a  spy,  an  informer, 
a  trading  politician,  a  swindler,  a  professional  hypo 
crite,  a  patriot  for  cash,  a  reformer,  a  lecturer,  a 
lawyer,  a  conspirator,  a  rebel,  a  royalist,  a  democrat, 
a  practicer  and  propagator  of  irreverence,  a  meddler, 
an  intruder,  a  busybody,  an  infidel,  and  a  wallower 
in  sin  for  the  mere  love  of  it.  The  strange  result, 
the  incredible  result,  of  this  patient  accumulation 
of  all  damnable  traits  is,  that  he  does  not  know 

20 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

what  care  is,  he  does  not  know  what  sorrow  is,  he 
does  not  know  what  remorse  is;  his  life  is  one  long 
thundering  ecstasy  of  happiness,  and  he  will  go  to 
his  death  untroubled,  knowing  that  he  will  soon  turn 
up  again  as  an  author  or  something,  and  be  even 
more  intolerably  capable  and  comfortable  than  ever 
he  was  before. 

In  his  straddling  wide  forward-step,  and  his  springy 
sidewise  series  of  hops,  and  his  impudent  air,  and 
his  cunning  way  of  canting  his  head  to  one  side 
upon  occasion,  he  reminds  one  of  the  American 
blackbird.  But  the  sharp  resemblances  stop  there. 
He  is  much  bigger  than  the  blackbird;  and  he  lacks 
the  blackbird's  trim  and  slender  and  beautiful  build 
and  shapely  beak;  and  of  course  his  sober  garb  of 
gray  and  rusty  black  is  a  poor  and  humble  thing 
compared  with  the  splendid  luster  of  the  blackbird's 
metallic  sables  and  shifting  and  flashing  bronze 
glories.  The  blackbird  is  a  perfect  gentleman,  in 
deportment  and  attire,  and  is  not  noisy,  I  believe, 
except  when  holding  religious  services  and  political 
conventions  in  a  tree;  but  this  Indian  sham  Quaker 
is  just  a  rowdy,  and  is  always  noisy  when  awake — 
always  chaffing,  scolding,  scoffing,  laughing,  ripping, 
and  cursing,  and  carrying  on  about  something  or 
other.  I  never  saw  such  a  bird  for  delivering  opin 
ions.  Nothing  escapes  him;  he  notices  everything 
that  happens,  and  brings  out  his  opinion  about  it, 
particularly  if  it  is  a  matter  that  is  none  of  his  busi 
ness.  And  it  is  never  a  mild  opinion,  but  always 
violent — violent  and  profane — the  presence  of  ladies 
does  not  affect  him.  His  opinions  are  not  the  out- 

21 


MARK    TWAIN 

come  of  reflection,  for  he  never  thinks  about  any 
thing,  but  heaves  out  the  opinion  that  is  on  top  in 
his  mind,  and  which  is  often  an  opinion  about  some 
quite  different  thing  and  does  not  fit  the  case.  But 
that  is  his  way;  his  main  idea  is  to  get  out  an 
opinion,  and  if  he  stopped  to  think  he  would  lose 
chances. 

I  suppose  he  has  no  enemies  among  men.  The 
whites  and  Mohammedans  never  seemed  to  molest 
him;  and  the  Hindus,  because  of  their  religion, 
never  take  the  life  of  any  creature,  but  spare  even 
the  snakes  and  tigers  and  fleas  and  rats.  If  I  sat 
on  one  end  of  the  balcony,  the  crows  would  gather 
on  the  railing  at  the  other  end  and  talk  about  me; 
and  edge  closer,  little  by  little,  till  I  could  almost 
reach  them;  and  they  would  sit  there,  in  the  most 
unabashed  way,  and  talk  about  my  clothes,  and  my 
hair,  and  my  complexion,  and  probable  character 
and  vocation  and  politics,  and  how  I  came  to  be  in 
India,  and  what  I  had  been  doing,  and  how  many 
days  I  had  got  for  it,  and  how  I  had  happened  to  go 
unhanged  so  long,  and  when  would  it  probably  come 
off,  and  might  there  be  more  of  my  sort  where  I 
came  from,  and  when  would  they  be  hanged — and 
so  on,  and  so  on,  until  I  could  not  longer  endure  the 
embarrassment  of  it ;  then  I  would  shoo  them  away, 
and  they  would  circle  around  in  the  air  a  little  while, 
laughing  and  deriding  and  mocking,  and  presently 
settle  on  the  rail  and  do  it  all  over  again. 

They  were  very  sociable  when  there  was  anything 
to  eat — oppressively  so.  With  a  little  encourage 
ment  they  would  come  in  and  light  on  the  table  and 

22 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

help  me  eat  my  breakfast;  and  once  when  I  was  in 
the  other  room  and  they  found  themselves  alone, 
they  carried  off  everything  they  could  lift;  and  they 
were  particular  to  choose  things  which  they  could 
make  no  use  of  after  they  got  them.  In  India  their 
number  is  beyond  estimate,  and  their  noise  is  in 
proportion.  I  suppose  they  cost  the  country  more 
than  the  government  does;  yet  that  is  not  a  light 
matter.  Still,  they  pay;  their  company  pays;  it 
would  sadden  the  land  to  take  their  cheerful  voice 
out  of  it. 


CHAPTER  III 

I  ENJOY  A  DIVINE   CALL 

By  trying  we  can  easily  learn  to  endure  adversity.     Another  man's,  I  mean. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

YOU  soon  find  your  long-ago  dreams  of  India  ris 
ing  in  a  sort  of  vague  and  luscious  moonlight 
above  the  horizon-rim  of  your  opaque  conscious 
ness,  and  softly  lighting  up  a  thousand  forgotten 
details  which  were  parts  of  a  vision  that  had  once 
been  vivid  to  you  when  you  were  a  boy,  and  steeped 
your  spirit  in  tales  of  the  East.  The  barbaric  gor- 
geousnesses,  for  instance ;  and  the  princely  titles,  the 
sumptuous  titles,  the  sounding  titles — how  good 
they^taste  in  the  mouth!  The  Nizam  of  Hydera 
bad;  the  Maharajah  of  Travancore;  the  Nabob  of 
Jubbulpore;  the  Begum  of  Bhopal;  the  Nawab 
of  Mysore;  the  Ranee  of  Gulnare;  the  Ahkoond 
of  Swat;  the  Rao  of  Rohilkund;  the  Gaikwar  of 
Baroda.  Indeed,  it  is  a  country  that  runs  richly  to 
name.  The  great  god  Vishnu  has  108 — 108  special 
ones — 1 08  peculiarly  holy  ones — names  just  for 
Sunday  use  only.  I  learned  the  whole  of  Vishnu's 
1 08  by  heart  once,  but  they  wouldn't  stay;  I  don't 
remember  any  of  them  now  but  John  W. 

And  the  romances  connected  with  those  princely 
native  houses — to  this  day  they  are  always  turning 
up,  just  as  in  the  old,  old  times.  They  were  sweating 

24 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

out  a  romance  in  an  English  court  in  Bombay  a 
while  before  we  were  there.  In  this  case  a  native 
prince,  sixteen  and  a  half  years  old,  who  had  been 
enjoying  his  titles  and  dignities  and  estates  unmo 
lested  for  fourteen  years,  is  suddenly  haled  into 
court  on  the  charge  that  he  is  rightfully  no  prince 
at  all,  but  a  pauper  peasant ;  that  the  real  prince  died 
when  two  and  one-half  years  old;  that  the  death 
was  concealed,  and  a  peasant  child  smuggled  into 
the  royal  cradle,  and  that  this  present  incumbent 
was  that  smuggled  substitute.  This  is  the  very 
material  that  so  many  oriental  tales  have  been  made 
of. 

The  case  of  that  great  prince,  the  Gaikwar  of 
Baroda,  is  a  reversal  of  the  theme.  When  that 
throne  fell  vacant,  no  heir  could  be  found  for  some 
time,  but  at  last  one  was  found  in  the  person  of  a 
peasant  child  who  was  making  mud  pies  in  a  village 
street,  and  having  an  innocent  good  time.  But  his 
pedigree  was  straight ;  he  was  the  true  prince,  and  he 
has  reigned  ever  since,  with  none  to  dispute  his  right. 

Lately  there  was  another  hunt  for  an  heir  to  an 
other  princely  house,  and  one  was  found  who  was 
circumstanced  about  as  the  Gaikwar  had  been.  His 
fathers  were  traced  back,  in  humble  life,  along  a 
branch  of  the  ancestral  tree  to  the  point  where  it 
joined  the  stem  fourteen  generations  ago,  and  his 
heirship  was  thereby  squarely  established.  The 
tracing  was  done  by  means  of  the  records  of  one  of 
the  great  Hindu  shrines,  where  princes  on  pilgrimage 
record  their  names  and  the  date  of  their  visit.  This 
is  to  keep  the  prince's  religious  account  straight,  and 

25 


MARK    TWAIN 

his  spiritual  person  safe;  but  the  record  has  the  added 
value  of  keeping  the  pedigree  authentic,  too. 

When  I  think  of  Bombay  now,  at  this  distance  of 
time,  I  seem  to  have  a  kaleidoscope  at  my  eye;  and 
I  hear  the  clash  of  the  glass  bits  as  the  splendid 
figures  change,  and  fall  apart,  and  flash  into  new 
forms,  figure  after  figure,  and  with  the  birth  of  each 
new  form  I  feel  my  skin  crinkle  and  my  nerve-web 
tingle  with  a  new  thrill  of  wonder  and  delight. 
These  remembered  pictures  float  past  me  in  a 
sequence  of  contrasts;  following  the  same  order 
always,  and  always  whirling  by  and  disappearing 
with  the  swiftness  of  a  dream,  leaving  me  with  the 
sense  that  the  actuality  was  the  experience  of  an 
hour,  at  most,  whereas  it  really  covered  days,  I 
think. 

The  series  begins  with  the  hiring  of  a  "bearer" — 
native  man-servant — a  person  who  should  be  selected 
with  some  care,  because  as  long  as  he  is  in  your 
employ  he  will  be  about  as  near  to  you  as  your 
clothes. 

In  India  your  day  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the 
"bearer's"  knock  on  the  bedroom  door,  accom 
panied  by  a  formula  of  words — a  formula  which  is 
intended  to  mean  that  the  bath  is  ready.  It  doesn't 
really  seem  to  mean  anything  at  all.  But  that  is  be 
cause  you  are  not  used  to  "bearer"  English.  You 
will  presently  understand. 

Where  he  gets  his  English  is  his  own  secret. 
There  is  nothing  like  it  elsewhere  in  the  earth;  or 
even  in  paradise,  perhaps,  but  the  other  place  is 
probably  full  of  it.  You  hire  him  as  soon  as  you 

26 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

touch  Indian  soil;  for  no  matter  what  your  sex  is, 
you  cannot  do  without  him.  He  is  messenger,  valet, 
chambermaid,  table-waiter,  lady's  maid,  courier — he 
is  everything.  He  carries  a  coarse  linen  clothes-bag 
and  a  quilt;  he  sleeps  on  the  stone  floor  outside 
your  chamber  door,  and  gets  his  meals  you  do  not 
know  where  nor  when;  you  only  know  that  he  is  not 
fed  on  the  premises,  either  when  you  are  in  a  hotel 
or  when  you  are  a  guest  in  a  private  house.  His 
wages  are  large — from  an  Indian  point  of  view — 
and  he  feeds  and  clothes  himself  out  of  them.  We 
had  three  of  him  in  two  and  a  half  months.  The 
first  one's  rate  was  thirty  rupees  a  month — that  is 
to  say,  twenty-seven  cents  a  day;  the  rate  of  the 
others,  Rs.  40  (40  rupees)  a  month.  A  princely 
sum;  for  the  native  switchman  on  a  railway  and  the 
native  servant  in  a  private  family  get  only  Rs.  7  per 
month,  and  the  farm-hand  only  four.  The  two 
former  feed  and  clothe  themselves  and  their  families 
on  their  $1.90  per  month;  but  I  cannot  believe  that 
the  farm-hand  has  to  feed  himself  on  his  $i. 08.  I 
think  the  farm  probably  feeds  him,  and  that  the 
whole  of  his  wages,  except  a  trifle  for  the  priest,  goes 
to  the  support  of  his  family.  That  is,  to  the  feeding 
of  his  family;  for  they  live  in  a  mud  hut,  hand-made, 
and,  doubtless,  rent-free,  and  they  wear  no  clothes; 
at  least,  nothing  more  than  a  rag.  And  not  much 
of  a  rag  at  that,  in  the  case  of  the  males.  However, 
these  are  handsome  times  for  the  farm-hand;  he 
was  not  always  the  child  of  luxury  that  he  is  now. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Central  Provinces, 
in  a  recent  official  utterance  wherein  he  was  rebuk- 

27 


MARK     TWAIN 

ing  a  native  deputation  for  complaining  of  hard 
times,  reminded  them  that  they  could  easily  remem 
ber  when  a  farm-hand's  wages  were  only  half  a  rupee 
(former  value)  a  month — that  is  to  say,  less  than 
a  cent  a  day;  nearly  $2.90  a  year.  If  such  a  wage- 
earner  had  a  good  deal  of  a  family — and  they  all 
have  that,  for  God  is  very  good  to  these  poor  natives 
in  some  ways — he  would  save  a  profit  of  fifteen 
cents,  clean  and  clear,  out  of  his  year's  toil ;  I  mean 
a  frugal,  thrifty  person  would,  not  one  given  to  dis 
play  and  ostentation.  And  if  he  owed  $13.50  and 
took  good  care  of  his  health,  he  could  pay  it  off  in 
ninety  years.  Then  he  could  hold  up  his  head  and 
look  his  creditors  in  the  face  again. 

Think  of  these  facts  and  what  they  mean.  India 
does  not  consist  of  cities.  There  are  no  cities  in 
India — to  speak  of.  Its  stupendous  population  con 
sists  of  farm-laborers.  India  is  one  vast  farm — 
one  almost  interminable  stretch  of  fields  with  mud 
fences  between.  Think  of  the  above  facts;  and 
consider  what  an  incredible  aggregate  of  poverty 
they  place  before  you. 

The  first  Bearer  that  applied  waited  below  and 
sent  up  his  recommendations.  That  was  the  first 
morning  in  Bombay.  We  read  them  over;  care 
fully,  cautiously,  thoughtfully.  There  was  not  a 
fault  to  find  with  them — except  one;  they  were  all 
from  Americans.  Is  that  a  slur?  If  it  is,  it  is  a 
deserved  one.  In  my  experience,  an  American's  rec 
ommendation  of  a  servant  is  not  usually  valuable. 
We  are  too  good-natured  a  race-;  we-  hate  to  say  the 
unpleasant  thing;  we  shrink  from  speaking  the  un- 

28 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

kind  truth  about  a  poor  fellow  whose  bread  depends 
upon  our  verdict;  so  we  speak  of  his  good  points 
only,  thus  not  scrupling  to  tell  a  lie — a  silent  lie — 
for  in  not  mentioning  his  bad  ones  we  as  good  as 
say  he  hasn't  any.  The  only  difference  that  I  know 
of  between  a  silent  lie  and  a  spoken  one  is,  that  the 
silent  lie  is  a  less  respectable  one  than  the  other. 
And  it  can  deceive,  whereas  the  other  can't — as  a 
rule.  We  not  only  tell  the  silent  lie  as  to  a  servant's 
faults,  but  we  sin  in  another  way :  we  overpraise  his 
merits;  for  when  it  comes  to  writing  recommenda 
tions  of  servants  we  are  a  nation  of  gushers.  And 
we  have  not  the  Frenchman's  excuse.  In  France 
you  must  give  the  departing  servant  a  good  recom 
mendation;  and  you  must  conceal  his  faults;  you 
have  no  choice.  If  you  mention  his  faults  for  the 
protection  of  the  next  candidate  for  his  services,  he 
can  sue  you  for  damages;  and  the  court  will  award 
them,  too;  and,  moreover,  the  judge  will  give  you  a 
sharp  dressing-down  from  the  bench  for  trying  to 
destroy  a  poor  man's  character  and  rob  him  of  his 
bread.  I  do  not  state  this  on  my  own  authority,  I 
got  it  from  a  French  physician  of  fame  and  repute 
— a  man  who  was  born  in  Paris,  and  had  practised 
there  all  his  life.  And  he  said  that  he  spoke  not 
merely  from  common  knowledge,  but  from  exasper 
ating  personal  experience. 

As  I  was  saying,  the  Bearer's  recommendations 
were  all  from  American  tourists;  and  St.  Peter 
would  have  admitted  him  to  the  fields  of  the  blest 
on  them — I  mean  if  he  is  as  unfamiliar  with  our 
people  and  our  ways  as  I  suppose  he  is.  According 

29 


MARK    TWAIN 

to  these  recommendations,  Manuel  X  was  supreme 
in  all  the  arts  connected  with  his  complex  trade; 
and  these  manifold  arts  were  mentioned — and 
praised — in  detail.  His  English  was  spoken  of  in 
terms  of  warm  admiration — admiration  verging  upon 
rapture.  I  took  pleased  note  of  that,  and  hoped 
that  some  of  it  might  be  true. 

We  had  to  have  some  one  right  away;  so  the 
family  went  down-stairs  and  took  him  a  week  on 
trial;  then  sent  him  up  to  me  and  departed  on  their 
affairs.  I  was  shut  up  in  my  quarters  with  a  bron 
chial  cough,  and  glad  to  have  something  fresh  to 
look  at,  something  new  to  play  with.  Manuel  rilled 
the  bill;  Manuel  was  very  welcome.  He  was  toward 
fifty  years  old,  tall,  slender,  with  a  slight  stoop — an 
artificial  stoop,  a  deferential  stoop,  a  stoop  rigidified 
by  long  habit — with  face  of  European  mold;  short 
hair,  intensely  black;  gentle  black  eyes,  timid  black 
eyes,  indeed;  complexion  very  dark,  nearly  black  in 
fact;  face  smooth-shaven.  He  was  bareheaded  and 
barefooted,  and  was  never  otherwise  while  his  week 
with  us  lasted;  his  clothing  was  European,  cheap, 
flimsy,  and  showed  much  wear. 

He  stood  before  me  and  inclined  his  head  (and  body) 
in  the  pathetic  Indian  way,  touching  his  forehead  with 
the  finger-ends  of  his  right  hand,  in  salute.  I  said : 

"Manuel,  you  are  evidently  Indian,  but  you  seem 
to  have  a  Spanish  name  when  you  put  it  all  together. 
How  is  that?" 

A  perplexed  look  gathered  in  his  face;  it  was 
plain  that  he  had  not  understood — but  he  didn't  let 
on.  He  spoke  back  placidly : 

30 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

"Name,  Manuel.    Yes,  master." 

"I  know;  but  how  did  you  get  the  name?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  suppose.  Think  happen  so.  Father 
same  name,  not  mother." 

I  saw  that  I  must  simplify  my  language  and  spread 
my  words  apart,  if  I  would  be  understood  by  this 
English  scholar. 

"Well  —  then  —  how  —  did  —  your  —  father  — 
get  —  his  —  name?" 

"Oh,  he"— brightening  a  little— "he  Christian- 
Forty  gee;  live  in  Goa;  I  born  Goa;  mother  not 
Portygee,  mother  native — high-caste  Brahman — 
Coolin  Brahman;  highest  caste;  no  other  so  high 
caste.  I  high-caste  Brahman,  too.  Christian,  too, 
same  like  father;  high -caste  Christian  Brahman, 
master — Salvation  Army. ' ' 

All  this  haltingly,  and  with  difficulty.  Then  he 
had  an  inspiration,  and  began  to  pour  out  a  flood  of 
words  that  I  could  make  nothing  of;  so  I  said: 

"There — don't  do  that.  I  can't  understand 
Hindustani." 

"Not  Hindustani,  master — English.  Always  I 
speaking  English  sometimes  when  I  talking  every  day 
all  the  time  at  you." 

"Very  well,  stick  to  tfiat;  that  is  intelligible.  It 
is  not  up  to  my  hopes,  it  is  not  up  to  the  promise 
of  the  recommendations,  still  it  is  English,  and  I 
understand  it.  Don't  elaborate  it;  I  don't  like 
elaborations  when  they  are  crippled  by  uncertainty 
of  touch." 

"Master?" 

"Oh,  never  mind;  it  was  only  a  random  thought; 

31 


MARK     TWAIN 

I  didn't  expect  you  to  understand  it.  How  did  you 
get  your  English;  is  it  an  acquirement,  or  just  a  gift 
of  God?" 

After  some  hesitation — piously : 

"Yes,  he  very  good.  Christian  god  very  good; 
Hindu  god  very  good,  too.  Two  million  Hindu 
god,  one  Christian  god — make  two  million  and  one. 
All  mine;  two  million  and  one  god.  I  got  a  plenty. 
Sometime  I  pray  all  time  at  those,  keep  it  up,  go 
all  time  every  day;  give  something  at  shrine,  all 
good  for  me,  make  me  better  man;  good  for  me, 
good  for  my  family,  dam  good." 

Then  he  had  another  inspiration,  and  went  ram 
bling  off  into  fervent  confusions  and  incoherencies, 
and  I  had  to  stop  him  again.  I  thought  we  had 
talked  enough,  so  I  told  him  to  go  to  the  bathroom 
and  clean  it  up  and  remove  the  slops — this  to  get 
rid  of  him.  He  went  away,  seeming  to  understand, 
and  got  out  some  of  my  clothes  and  began  to  brush 
them.  I  repeated  my  desire  several  times,  simplify 
ing  and  resimplifying  it,  and  at  last  he  got  the  idea. 
Then  he  went  away  and  put  a  coolie  at  the  work, 
and  explained  that  he  would  lose  caste  if  he  did  it 
himself;  it  would  be  pollution,  by  the  law  of  his 
caste,  and  it  would  cost  him  a  deal  of  fuss  and  trouble 
to  purify  himself  and  accomplish  his  rehabilitation. 
He  said  that  that  kind  of  work  was  strictly  forbidden 
to  persons  of  caste,  and  as  strictly  restricted  to  the 
very  bottom  layer  of  Hindu  society — the  despised 
Sudra  (the  toiler,  the  laborer).  He  was  right;  and 
apparently  the  poor  Sudra  has  been  content  with  his 
strange  lot,  his  insulting  distinction,  for  ages  and 

32 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

ages — clear  back  to  the  beginning  of  things,  so  to 
speak.  Buckle  says  that  his  name — laborer — is  a 
term  of  contempt;  that  it  is  ordained  by  the  Insti 
tutes  of  Menu  (900  B.C.)  that  if  a  Sudra  sit  on  a 
level  with  his  superior  he  shall  be  exiled  or  branded1 
.  .  .  ;  if  he  speak  contemptuously  of  his  superior 
or  insult  him  he  shall  suffer  death;  if  he  listen  to  the 
reading  of  the  sacred  books  he  shall  have  burning 
oil  poured  in  his  ears;  if  he  memorize  passages  from 
them  he  shall  be  killed;  if  he  marry  his  daughter  to 
a  Brahman  the  husband  shall  go  to  hell  for  defiling 
himself  by  contact  with  a  woman  so  infinitely  his 
inferior;  and  that  it  is  forbidden  to  a  Sudra  to  acquire 
wealth.  "The  bulk  of  the  population  of  India," 
says  Buckle,2  "is  the  Sudras — the  workers,  the 
farmers,  the  creators  of  wealth." 

Manuel  was  a  failure,  poor  old  fellow.  His  age 
was  against  him.  He  was  desperately  slow  and 
phenomenally  forgetful.  When  he  went  three  blocks 
on  an  errand  he  would  be  gone  two  hours,  and  then 
forget  what  it  was  he  went  for.  When  he  packed  a 
trunk  it  took  him  forever,  and  the  trunk's  contents 
were  an  unimaginable  chaos  when  he  got  done. 
He  couldn't  wait  satisfactorily  at  table — a  prime 
defect,  for  if  you  haven't  your  own  servant  in  an 
Indian  hotel  you  are  likely  to  have  a  slow  time  of 
it  and  go  away  hungry.  We  couldn't  understand 
his  English;  he  couldn't  understand  ours ;  and  when 
we  found  that  he  couldn't  understand  his  own,  it 

1  Without  going  into  particulars,  I  will  remark  that,  as  a  rule, 
they  wear  no  clothing  that  would  conceal  the  brand. — M.  T. 

2  Population  to-day,  300,000,000. 

33 


MARK    TWAIN 

seemed  time  for  us  to  part.  I  had  to  discharge 
him;  there  was  no  help  for  it.  But  I  did  it  as 
kindly  as  I  could,  and  as  gently.  We  must  part, 
said  I,  but  I  hoped  we  should  meet  again  in  a  better 
world.  It  was  not  true,  but  it  was  only  a  little  thing 
to  say,  and  saved  his  feelings  and  cost  me  nothing. 

But  now  that  he  was  gone,  and  was  off  my  mind 
and  heart,  my  spirits  began  to  rise  at  once,  and  I 
was  soon  feeling  brisk  and  ready  to  go  out  and  have 
adventures.  Then  his  newly  hired  successor  flitted 
in,  touched  his  forehead,  and  began  to  fly  around 
here,  there,  and  everywhere,  on  his  velvet  feet,  and 
in  five  minutes  he  had  everything  in  the  room  "ship 
shape  and  Bristol  fashion,"  as  the  sailors  say,  and 
was  standing  at  the  salute,  waiting  for  orders.  Dear 
me,  what  a  rustler  he  was  after  the  slumbrous  way 
of  Manuel,  poor  old  slug!  All  my  heart,  all  my 
affection,  all  my  admiration,  went  out  spontaneously 
to  this  frisky  little  forked  black  thing,  this  compact 
and  compressed  incarnation  of  energy  and  force  and 
promptness  and  celerity  and  confidence,  this  smart, 
smily,  engaging,  shiny-eyed  little  devil,  feruled  on 
his  upper  end  by  a  gleaming  fire-coal  of  a  fez  with 
a  red-hot  tassel  dangling  from  it.  I  said,  with  deep 
satisfaction : 

"You'll  suit.    What  is  your  name?" 

He  reeled  it  mellowly  off. 

"Let  me  see  if  I  can  make  a  selection  out  of  it — 
for  business  uses,  I  mean;  we  will  keep  the  rest  for 
Sundays.  Give  it  to  me  in  instalments." 

He  did  it.  But  there  did  not  seem  to  be  any  short 
ones,  except  Mousa — which  suggested  mouse.  It 

34 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

was  out  of  character;  it  was  too  soft,  too  quiet,  too 
conservative;  it  didn't  fit  his  splendid  style.  I 
considered,  and  said: 

"Mousa  is  short  enough,  but  I  don't  quite  like  it. 
It  seems  colorless — inharmonious — inadequate;  and 
I  am  sensitive  to  such  things.  How  do  you  think 
Satan  would  do?" 

"Yes,  master.    Satan  do  wair  good." 

It  was  his  way  of  saying  "very  good." 

There  was  a  rap  at  the  door.  Satan  covered  the 
ground  with  a  single  skip;  there  was  a  word  or  two 
of  Hindustani,  then  he  disappeared.  Three  minutes 
later  he  was  before  me  again,  militarily  erect,  and 
waiting  for  me  to  speak  first. 

"What  is  it,  Satan?" 

"God  want  to  see  you." 

"WlofV 

"God.    I  show  him  up,  master?" 

"Why,  this  is  so  unusual,  that — that — well,  you 
see — indeed  I  am  so  unprepared — I  don't  quite 
know  what  I  do  mean.  Dear  me,  can't  you  ex 
plain?  Don't  you  see  that  this  is  a  most  ex — " 

"Here  his  card,  master." 

Wasn't  it  curious — and  amazing,  and  tremendous, 
and  all  that?  Such  a  personage  going  around  call 
ing  on  such  as  I,  and  sending  up  his  card,  like  a 
mortal — sending  it  up  by  Satan.  It  was  a  bewilder 
ing  collision  of  the  impossibles.  But  this  was  the 
land  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  this  was  India!  and 
what  is  it  that  cannot  happen  in  India? 

We  had  the  interview.  Satan  was  right — the 
Visitor  was  indeed  a  God  in  the  conviction  of  his 

35 


MARK     TWAIN 

multitudinous  followers,  and  was  worshiped  by  them 
in  sincerity  and  humble  adoration.  They  are  trou 
bled  by  no  doubts  as  to  his  divine  origin  and  office. 
They  believe  in  him,  they  pray  to  him,  they  make 
offerings  to  him,  they  beg  of  him  remission  of  sins; 
to  them  his  person,  together  with  everything  con 
nected  with  it,  is  sacred;  from  his  barber  they  buy 
the  parings  of  his  nails  and  set  them  in  gold,  and 
wear  them  as  precious  amulets. 

I  tried  to  seem  tranquilly  conversational  and  at 
rest,  but  I  was  not.  Would  you  have  been?  I  was 
in  a  suppressed  frenzy  of  excitement  and  curiosity 
and  glad  wonder.  I  could  not  keep  my  eyes  off 
him.  I  was  looking  upon  a  god,  an  actual  god,  a 
recognized  and  accepted  god ;  and  every  detail  of  his 
person  and  his  dress  had  a  consuming  interest  for 
me.  And  the  thought  went  floating  through  my 
head,  "He  is  worshiped — think  of  it — he  is  not  a 
recipient  of  the  pale  homage  called  compliment, 
wherewith  the  highest  human  clay  must  make  shift 
to  be  satisfied,  but  of  an  infinitely  richer  spiritual 
food:  adoration,  worship! — men  and  women  lay 
their  cares  and  their  griefs  and  their  broken  hearts 
at  his  feet;  and  he  gives  them  his  peace,  and  they 
go  away  healed." 

And  just  then  the  Awful  Visitor  said,  in  the  sim 
plest  way : 

"There  is  a  feature  of  the  philosophy  of  Huck 
Finn  which" — and  went  luminously  on  with  the 
construction  of  a  compact  and  nicely  discriminated 
literary  verdict. 

It  is  a  land  of  surprises — India!  I  had  had  my 

36 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

ambitions — I  had  hoped,  and  almost  expected,  to 
be  read  by  kings  and  presidents  and  emperors — 
but  I  had  never  looked  so  high  as  That.  It  would  be 
false  modesty  to  pretend  that  I  was  not  inordinately 
pleased.  I  was.  I  was  much  more  pleased  than 
I  should  have  been  with  a  compliment  from  a  man. 

He  remained  half  an  hour,  and  I  found  him  a  most 
courteous  and  charming  gentleman.  The  godship 
has  been  in  his  family  a  good  while,  but  I  do  not 
know  how  long.  He  is  a  Mohammedan  deity;  by 
earthly  rank  he  is  a  prince;  not  an  Indian  but  a 
Persian  prince.  He  is  a  direct  descendant  of  the 
Prophet's  line.  He  is  comely;  also  young — for  a 
god;  not  forty,  perhaps  not  above  thirty-five  years 
old.  He  wears  his  immense  honors  with  tranquil 
grace,  and  with  a  dignity  proper  to  his  awful  calling. 
He  speaks  English  with  the  ease  and  purity  of  a 
person  born  to  it.  I  think  I  am  not  overstating  this. 
He  was  the  only  god  I  had  ever  seen,  and  I  was 
very  favorably  impressed.  When  he  rose  to  say 
good-by,  the  door  swung  open  and  I  caught  the 
flash  of  a  red  fez,  and  heard  these  words,  reverently 
said: 

" Satan  see  God  out?" 

"Yes."  And  these  mismated  Beings  passed  from 
view — Satan  in  the  lead  and  The  Other  following 
after. 


37 


CHAPTER  IV 

MAJESTY  OF  THE  TOWERS  OF  SILENCE 

Few  of  us  can  stand  prosperity.    Another  man's,  I  mean. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  next  picture  in  my  mind  is  Government 
House,  on  Malabar  Point,  with  the  wide  sea 
view  from  the  windows  and  broad  balconies;  abode 
of  his  Excellency  the  Governor  of  the  Bombay 
Presidency — a  residence  which  is  European  in  every 
thing  but  the  native  guards  and  servants,  and  is  a 
home  and  a  palace  of  state  harmoniously  combined. 

That  was  England,  the  English  power,  the  Eng 
lish  civilization,  the  modern  civilization — with  the 
quiet  elegancies  and  quiet  colors  and  quiet  tastes 
and  quiet  dignity  that  are  the  outcome  of  the  modern 
cultivation.  And  following  it  came  a  picture  of  the 
ancient  civilization  of  India — an  hour  in  the  mansion 
of  a  native  prince:  Kumar  Schri  Samatsinhji  Baha 
dur  of  the  Palitana  State. 

The  young  lad,  his  heir,  was  with  the  prince; 
also,  the  lad's  sister,  a  wee  brown  sprite,  very  pretty, 
very  serious,  very  winning,  delicately  molded,  cos 
tumed  like  the  daintiest  butterfly,  a  dear  little  fairy 
land  princess,  gravely  willing  to  be  friendly  with  the 
strangers,  but  in  the  beginning  preferring  to  hold  her 
father's  hand  until  she  could  take  stock  of  them  and 
determine  how  far  they  were  to  be  trusted.  She 
must  have  been  eight  years  old;  so  in  the  natural 

38 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

(Indian)  order  of  things  she  would  be  a  bride  in 
three  or  four  years  from  now,  and  then  this  free 
contact  with  the  sun  and  the  air  and  the  other 
belongings  of  outdoor  nature  and  comradeship  with 
visiting  male  folk  would  end,  and  she  would  shut 
herself  up  in  the  zenana  for  life,  like  her  mother, 
and  by  inherited  habit  of  mind  would  be  happy  in 
that  seclusion  and  not  look  upon  it  as  an  irksome 
restraint  and  a  weary  captivity. 

The  game  which  the  prince  amuses  his  leisure 
with — however,  never  mind  it,  I  should  never  be 
able  to  describe  it  intelligibly.  I  tried  to  get  an 
idea  of  it  while  my  wife  and  daughter  visited  the 
princess  in  the  zenana,  a  lady  of  charming  graces 
and  a  fluent  speaker  of  English,  but  I  did  not  make 
it  out.  It  is  a  complicated  game,  and  I  believe  it  is 
said  that  nobody  can  learn  to  play  it  well  but  an 
Indian.  And  I  was  not  able  to  learn  how  to  wind  a 
turban.  It  seemed  a  simple  art  and  easy;  but  that 
was  a  deception.  It  is  a  piece  of  thin,  delicate 
stuff  a  foot  wide  or  more,  and  forty  or  fifty  feet 
long;  and  the  exhibitor  of  the  art  takes  one  end  of 
it  in  his  two  hands,  and  winds  it  in  and  out  intri 
cately  about  his  head,  twisting  it  as  he  goes,  and  in 
a  minute  or  two  the  thing  is  finished,  and  is  neat 
and  symmetrical  and  fits  as  snugly  as  a  mold. 

We  were  interested  in  the  wardrobe  and  the 
jewels,  and  in  the  silverware,  and  its  grace  of  shape 
and  beauty  and  delicacy  of  ornamentation.  The 
silverware  is  kept  locked  up,  except  at  meal-times, 
and  none  but  the  chief  butler  and  the  prince  have 
keys  to  the  safe.  I  did  not  clearly  understand  why, 

39 


MARK     TWAIN 

but  it  was  not  for  the  protection  of  the  silver.  It 
was  either  to  protect  the  prince  from  the  contamina 
tion  which  his  caste  would  suffer  if  the  vessels  were 
touched  by  low-caste  hands,  or  it  was  to  protect  his 
highness  from  poison.  Possibly  it  was  both.  I 
believe  a  salaried  taster  has  to  taste  everything  be 
fore  the  prince  ventures  it — an  ancient  and  judicious 
custom  in  the  East,  which  has  thinned  out  the  tasters 
a  good  deal,  for  of  course  it  is  the  cook  that  puts 
the  poison  in.  If  I  were  an  Indian  prince  I  would 
not  go  to  the  expense  of  a  taster,  I  would  eat  with 
the  cook. 

Ceremonials  are  always  interesting;  and  I  noted 
that  the  Indian  good-morning  is  a  ceremonial, 
whereas  ours  doesn't  amount  to  that.  In  salutation 
the  son  reverently  touches  the  father's  forehead  with 
a  small  silver  implement  tipped  with  vermilion  paste 
which  leaves  a  red  spot  there,  and  in  return  the  son 
receives  the  father's  blessing.  Our  good-morning 
is  well  enough  for  the  rowdy  West,  perhaps,  but 
would  be  too  brusque  for  the  soft  and  ceremonious 
East. 

After  being  properly  necklaced,  according  to  cus 
tom,  with  great  garlands  made  of  yellow  flowers,  and 
provided  with  betel-nut  to  chew,  this  pleasant  visit 
closed,  and  we  passed  thence  to  a  scene  of  a  different 
sort:  from  this  glow  of  color  and  this  sunny  life  to 
those  grim  receptacles  of  the  Parsee  dead,  the  Tow 
ers  of  Silence.  There  is  something  stately  about 
that  name,  and  an  impressiveness  which  sinks  deep; 
the  hush  of  death  is  in  it.  We  have  the  Grave,  the 
Tomb,  the  Mausoleum,  God's  Acre,  the  Cemetery; 

40 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

and  association  has  made  them  eloquent  with 
solemn  meaning;  but  we  have  no  name  that  is  so 
majestic  as  that  one,  or  lingers  upon  the  ear  with 
such  deep  and  haunting  pathos. 

On  lofty  ground,  in  the  midst  of  a  paradise  of 
tropical  foliage  and  flowers,  remote  from  the  world 
and  its  turmoil  and  noise,  they  stood — the  Towers 
of  Silence;  and  away  below  were  spread  the  wide 
groves  of  cocoa-palms,  then  the  city,  mile  on  mile, 
then  the  ocean  with  its  fleets  of  creeping  ships — all 
steeped  in  a  stillness  as  deep  as  the  hush  that  hal 
lowed  this  high  place  of  the  dead.  The  vultures 
were  there.  They  stood  close  together  in  a  great 
circle  all  around  the  rim  of  a  massive  low  tower — 
waiting;  stood  as  motionless  as  sculptured  orna 
ments,  and  indeed  almost  deceived  one  into  the 
belief  that  that  was  what  they  were.  Presently 
there  was  a  slight  stir  among  the  score  of  persons 
present,  and  all  moved  reverently  out  of  the  path 
and  ceased  from  talking.  A  funeral  procession  en 
tered  the  great  gate,  marching  two  and  two,  and 
moved  silently  by,  toward  the  Tower.  The  corpse  lay 
in  a  shallow  shell,  and  was  under  cover  of  a  white 
cloth,  but  was  otherwise  naked.  The  bearers  of  the 
body  were  separated  by  an  interval  of  thirty  feet 
from  the  mourners.  They,  and  also  the  mourners, 
were  draped  all  in  pure  white,  and  each  couple  of 
mourners  was  figuratively  bound  together  by  a  piece 
of  white  rope  or  a  handkerchief — though  they 
merely  held  the  ends  of  it  in  their  hands.  Behind 
the  procession  followed  a  dog,  which  was  led  in  a 
leash.  When  the  mourners  had  reached  the  neigh- 

41 


MARK    TWAIN 

borhood  of  the  Tower — neither  they  nor  any  other 
human  being  but  the  bearers  of  the  dead  must 
approach  within  thirty  feet  of  it-— they  turned  and 
went  back  to  one  of  the  prayer-houses  within  the 
gates,  to  pray  for  the  spirit  of  their  dead.  The 
bearers  unlocked  the  Tower's  sole  door  and  disap 
peared  from  view  within.  In  a  little  while  they 
came  out  bringing  the  bier  and  the  white  covering- 
cloth,  and  locked  the  door  again.  Then  the  ring  of 
vultures  rose,  flapping  their  wings,  and  swooped 
down  into  the  Tower  to  devour  the  body.  Nothing 
was  left  of  it  but  a  clean-picked  skeleton  when  they 
flocked  out  again  a  few  minutes  afterward. 

The  principle  which  underlies  and  orders  every 
thing  connected  with  a  Parsee  funeral  is  Purity.  By 
the  tenets  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion,  the  elements, 
Earth,  Fire,  and  Water,  are  sacred,  and  must  not  be 
contaminated  by  contact  with  a  dead  body.  Hence 
corpses  must  not  be  burned,  neither  must  they  be 
buried.  None  may  touch  the  dead  or  enter  the 
Towers  where  they  repose  except  certain  men  who 
are  officially  appointed  for  that  purpose.  They 
receive  high  pay,  but  theirs  is  a  dismal  life,  for  they 
must  live  apart  from  their  species,  because  their 
commerce  with  the  dead  defiles  them,  and  any  who 
should  associate  with  them  would  share  their  defile 
ment.  When  they  come  out  of  the  Tower  the  clothes 
they  are  wearing  are  exchanged  for  others,  in  a 
building  within  the  grounds,  and  the  ones  which 
they  have  taken  off  are  left  behind,  for  they  are 
contaminated,  and  must  never  be  used  again  or 
suffered  to  go  outside  the  grounds.  These  bearers 

42 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

come  to  every  funeral  in  new  garments.  So  far  as 
is  known,  no  human  being,  other  than  an  official 
corpse-bearer — save  one — has  ever  entered  a  Tower 
of  Silence  after  its  consecration.  Just  a  hundred 
years  ago  a  European  rushed  in  behind  the  bearers 
and  fed  his  brutal  curiosity  with  a  glimpse  of  the 
forbidden  mysteries  of  the  place.  This  shabby 
savage's  name  is  not  given;  his  quality  is  also  con 
cealed.  These  two  details,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  fact  that  for  his  extraordinary  offense  the  only 
punishment  he  got  from  the  East  India  Company's 
Government  was  a  solemn  official  "reprimand" — 
suggest  the  suspicion  that  he  was  a  European  of 
consequence.  The  same  public  document  which 
contained  the  reprimand  gave  warning  that  future 
offenders  of  his  sort,  if  in  the  company's  service, 
would  be  dismissed ;  and  if  merchants,  suffer  revoca 
tion  of  license  and  exile  to  England. 

The  Towers  are  not  tall,  but  are  low  in  proportion 
to  their  circumference,  like  a  gasometer.  If  you 
should  fill  a  gasometer  half-way  up  with  solid  granite 
masonry,  then  drive  a  wide  and  deep  well  down 
through  the  center  of  this  mass  of  masonry,  you 
would  have  the  idea  of  a  Tower  of  Silence.  On  the 
masonry  surrounding  the  well  the  bodies  lie,  in 
shallow  trenches  which  radiate  like  wheel-spokes 
from  the  well.  The  trenches  slant  toward  the  well 
and  carry  into  it  the  rainfall.  Underground  drains, 
with  charcoal  filters  in  them,  cany  off  this  water 
from  the  bottom  of  the  well. 

When  a  skeleton  has  lain  in  the  Tower  exposed  to 
the  rain  and  the  flaming  sun  a  month  it  is  perfectly 

43 


MARK    TWAIN 

dry  and  clean.  Then  the  same  bearers  that  brought 
it  there  come  gloved  and  take  it  up  with  tongs  and 
throw  it  into  the  well.  There  it  turns  to  dust.  It  is 
never  seen  again,, never  touched  again,  in  the  world. 
Other  peoples  separate  their  dead,  and  preserve  and 
continue  social  distinctions  in  the  grave — the  skele 
tons  of  kings  and  statesmen  and  generals  in  temples 
and  pantheons  proper  to  skeletons  of  their  degree, 
and  the  skeletons  of  the  commonplace  and  the  poor 
in  places  suited  to  their  meaner  estate;  but  the 
Parsees  hold  that  all  men  rank  alike  in  death — all 
are  humble,  all  poor,  all  destitute.  In  sign  of  their 
poverty  they  are  sent  to  their  grave  naked,  in  sign 
of  their  equality  the  bones  of  the  rich,  the  poor,  the 
illustrious,  and  the  obscure  are  flung  into  the  com 
mon  well  together.  At  a  Parsee  funeral  there  are 
no  vehicles;  all  concerned  must  walk,  both  rich  and 
poor,  howsoever  great  the  distance  to  be  traversed 
may  be.  In  the  wells  of  the  Five  Towers  of  Silence 
is  mingled  the  dust  of  all  the  Parsee  men  and  women 
and  children  who  have  died  in  Bombay  and  its 
vicinity  during  the  two  centuries  which  have  elapsed 
since  the  Mohammedan  conquerors  drove  the  Parsees 
out  of  Persia,  and  into  that  region  of  India.  The 
earliest  of  the  five  towers  was  built  by  the  Modi 
family  something  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago, 
and  it  is  now  reserved  to  the  heirs  of  that  house; 
none  but  the  dead  of  that  blood  are  carried 
thither. 

The  origin  of  at  least  one  of  the  details  of  a  Parsee 
funeral  is  not  now  known — the  presence  of  the  dog. 
Before  a  corpse  is  borne  from  the  house  of  mourning 

44 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

it  must  be  uncovered  and  exposed  to  the  gaze  of  a 
dog;  a  dog  must  also  be  led  in  the  rear  of  the  funeral. 
Mr.  Nusserwanjee  Byramjee,  Secretary  to  the  Parsee 
Punchayet,  said  that  these  formalities  had  once  had 
a  meaning  and  a  reason  for  their  institution,  but  that 
they  were  survivals  whose  origin  none  could  now 
account  for.  Custom  and  tradition  continue  them 
in  force,  antiquity  hallows  them.  It  is  thought  that 
in  ancient  times  in  Persia  the  dog  was  a  sacred 
animal  and  could  guide  souls  to  heaven;  also  that 
his  eye  had  the  power  of  purifying  objects  which  had 
been  contaminated  by  the  touch  of  the  dead;  and 
that  hence  his  presence  with  the  funeral  cortege 
provides  an  ever  -  applicable  remedy  in  case  of 
need. 

The  Parsees  claim  that  their  method  of  disposing 
of  the  dead  is  an  effective  protection  of  the  living; 
that  it  disseminates  no  corruption,  no  impurities  of 
any  sort,  no  disease-germs;  that  no  wrap,  no  gar 
ment  which  has  touched  the  dead  is  allowed  to  touch 
the  living  afterward;  that  from  the  Towers  of  Silence 
nothing  proceeds  which  can  carry  harm  to  the  out 
side  world.  These  are  just  claims,  I  think.  As  a 
sanitary  measure,  their  system  seems  to  be  about 
the  equivalent  of  cremation,  and  as  sure.  We  are 
drifting  slowly — but  hopefully — toward  cremation 
in  these  days.  It  could  not  be  expected  that  this 
progress  should  be  swift,  but  if  it  be  steady  and 
continuous,  even  if  slow,  that  will  suffice.  When 
cremation  becomes  the  rule  we  shall  cease  to  shudder 
at  it;  we  should  shudder  at  burial  if  we  allowed 
ourselves  to  think  what  goes  on  in  the  grave. 

45 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  dog  was  an  impressive  figure  to  me,  repre 
senting  as  he  did  a  mystery  whose  key  is  lost.  He 
was  humble,  and  apparently  depressed;  and  he  let 
his  head  droop  pensively,  and  looked  as  if  he  might 
be  trying  to  call  back  to  his  mind  what  it  was  that 
he  had  used  to  symbolize  ages  ago  when  he  began 
his  function.  There  was  another  impressive  thing 
close  at  hand,  but  I  was  not  privileged  to  see  it. 
That  was  the  sacred  fire  —  a  fire  which  is  sup 
posed  to  have  been  burning  without  interruption 
for  more  than  two  centuries;  and  so,  living  by 
the  same  heat  that  was  imparted  to  it  so  long 
ago. 

The  Parsees  are  a  remarkable  community.  There 
are  only  about  sixty  thousand  in  Bombay,  and  only 
about  half  as  many  as  that  in  the  rest  of  India; 
but  they  make  up  in  importance  what  they  lack  in 
numbers.  They  are  highly  educated,  energetic,  enter 
prising,  progressive,  rich,  and  the  Jew  himself  is 
not  more  lavish  or  catholic  in  his  charities  and 
benevolences.  The  Parsees  build  and  endow  hos 
pitals,  for  both  men  and  animals;  and  they  and 
their  womenkind  keep  an  open  purse  for  all  great 
and  good  objects.  They  are  a  political  force,  and  a 
valued  support  to  the  government.  They  have  a 
pure  and  lofty  religion,  and  they  preserve  it  in  its 
integrity  and  order  their  lives  by  it. 

We  took  a  final  sweep  of  the  wonderful  view  of 
plain  and  city  and  ocean,  and  so  ended  our  visit  to 
the  garden  and  the  Towers  of  Silence;  and  the  last 
thing  I  noticed  was  another  symbol — a  voluntary 
symbol  this  one;  it  was  a  vulture  standing  on  the 

46 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

sawed-off  top  of  a  tall  and  slender  and  branchless 
palm  in  an  open  space  in  the  ground;  he  was  per 
fectly  motionless,  and  looked  like  a  piece  of  sculp 
ture  on  a  pillar.  And  he  had  a  mortuary  look,  too, 
which  was  in  keeping  with  the  place. 


47 


CHAPTER  V 

WE  MINGLE  WITH  HUMAN  FIREWORKS 

There  is  an  old-time  toast  which  is  golden  for  its  beauty.     "When  you  ascend 
the  hill  of  prosperity  may  you  not  meet  a  friend." 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  next  picture  that  drifts  across  the  field  of 
my  memory  is  one  which  is  connected  with 
religious  things.  We  were  taken  by  friends  to  see 
a  Jain  temple.  It  was  small,  and  had  many  flags  or 
streamers  flying  from  poles  standing  above  its  roof; 
and  its  little  battlements  supported  a  great  many 
small  idols  or  images.  Up-stairs,  inside,  a  solitary 
Jain  was  praying  or  reciting  aloud  in  the  middle  of 
the  room.  Our  presence  did  not  interrupt  him,  nor 
even  incommode  him  or  modify  his  fervor.  Ten 
or  twelve  feet  in  front  of  him  was  the  idol,  a  small 
figure  in  a  sitting  posture.  It  had  the  pinkish  look 
of  a  wax  doll,  but  lacked  the  doll's  roundness  of 
limb  and  approximation  to  correctness  of  form  and 
justness  of  proportion.  Mr.  Gandhi  explained  every 
thing  to  us.  He  was  delegate  to  the  Chicago  Fair 
Congress  of  Religions.  It  was  lucidly  done,  in  mas 
terly  English,  but  in  time  it  faded  from  me,  and 
now  I  have  nothing  left  of  that  episode  but  an 
impression:  a  dim  idea  of  a  religious  belief  clothed 
in  subtle  intellectual  forms,  lofty  and  clean,  barren 
of  fleshly  grossnesses;  and  with  this  another  dim 
impression  which  connects  that  intellectual  system 

48 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

somehow  with  that  crude  image,  that  inadequate 
idol — how,  I  do  not  know.  Properly,  they  do  not 
seem  to  belong  together.  Apparently,  the  idol  sym 
bolized  a  person  who  had  become  a  saint  or  a  god 
through  accessions  of  steadily  augmenting  holiness 
acquired  through  a  series  of  reincarnations  and  pro 
motions  extending  over  many  ages;  and  was  now 
at  last  a  saint  and  qualified  to  vicariously  receive 
worship  and  transmit  it  to  heaven's  chancellery. 
Was  that  it? 

And  thence  we  went  to  Mr.  Premchand  Roy- 
chand's  bungalow,  in  Lovelane,  Byculla,  where  an 
Indian  prince  was  to  receive  a  deputation  of  the  Jain 
community  who  desired  to  congratulate  him  upon  a 
high  honor  lately  conferred  upon  him  by  his  sover 
eign,  Victoria,  Empress  of  India.  She  had  made 
him  a  knight  of  the  order  of  the  Star  of  India.  It 
would  seem  that  even  the  grandest  Indian  prince  is 
glad  to  add  the  modest  title  "Sir"  to  his  ancient 
native  grandeurs,  and  is  willing  to  do  valuable  service 
to  win  it.  He  will  remit  taxes  liberally,  and  will 
spend  money  freely  upon  the  betterment  of  the  con 
dition  of  his  subjects,  if  there  is  a  knighthood  to  be 
gotten  by  it.  And  he  will  also  do  good  work  and  a 
deal  of  it  to  get  a  gun  added  to  the  salute  allowed 
him  by  the  British  Government.  Every  year  the 
Empress  distributes  knighthoods  and  adds  guns  for 
public  services  done  by  native  princes.  The  salute 
of  a  small  prince  is  three  or  four  guns;  princes  of 
greater  consequence  have  salutes  that  run  higher  and 
higher,  gun  by  gun — oh,  clear  away  up  to  eleven; 
possibly  more,  but  I  did  not  hear  of  any  above 

49 


MARK    TWAIN 

eleven-gun  princes.  I  was  told  that  when  a  four- 
gun  prince  gets  a  gun  added,  he  is  pretty  trouble 
some  for  a  while,  till  the  novelty  wears  off,  for  he 
likes  the  music,  and  keeps  hunting  up  pretexts  to 
get  himself  saluted.  It  may  be  that  supremely 
grand  folk,  like  the  Nizam  of  Hyderabad  and  the 
Gaikwar  of  Baroda,  have  more  than  eleven  guns, 
but  I  don't  know. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  bungalow,  the  large  hall 
on  the  ground  floor  was  already  "about  full,  and 
carriages  were  still  flowing  into  the  grounds.  The 
company  present  made  a  fine  show,  an  exhibition  of 
human  fireworks,  so  to  speak,  in  the  matters  of  cos 
tume  and  comminglings  of  brilliant  color.  The 
variety  of  form  noticeable  in  the  display  of  turbans 
was  remarkable.  We  were  told  that  the  explanation 
of  this  was,  that  this  Jain  delegation  was  drawn 
from  many  parts  of  India,  and  that  each  man 
wore  the  turban  that  was  in  vogue  in  his  own 
region.  This  diversity  of  turbans  made  a  beautiful 
effect. 

I  could  have  wished  to  start  a  rival  exhibition 
there,  of  Christian  hats  and  clothes.  I  would  have 
cleared  one  side  of  the  room  of  its  Indian  splendors 
and  repacked  the  space  with  Christians  drawn  from 
America,  England,  and  the  Colonies,  dressed  in  the 
hats  and  habits  of  now,  and  of  twenty  and  forty  and 
fifty  years  ago.  It  would  have  been  a  hideous 
exhibition,  a  thoroughly  devilish  spectacle.  Then 
there  would  have  been  the  added  disadvantage  of 
the  white  complexion.  It  is  not  an  unbearably  un 
pleasant  complexion  when  it  keeps  to  itself,  but  when 

So 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

it  comes  into  competition  with  masses  of  brown 
and  black  the  fact  is  betrayed  that  it  is  endurable 
only  because  we  are  used  to  it.  Nearly  all  black 
and  brown  skins  are  beautiful,  but  a  beautiful  white 
skin  is  rare.  How  rare,  one  may  learn  by  walking 
down  a  street  in  Paris,  New  York,  or  London  on  a 
week-day — particularly  an  unfashionable  street — and 
keeping  count  of  the  satisfactory  complexions  en 
countered  in  the  course  of  a  mile.  Where  dark  com 
plexions  are  massed,  they  make  the  whites  look 
bleached  out,  unwholesome,  and  sometimes  frankly 
ghastly.  I  could  notice  this  as  a  boy,  down  South 
in  the  slavery  days  before  the  war.  The  splendid 
black-satin  skin  of  the  South  African  Zulus  of  Durban 
seemed  to  me  to  come  very  close  to  perfection.  I 
can  see  those  Zulus  yet — 'rikisha  athletes  waiting 
in  front  of  the  hotel  for  custom;  handsome  and  in 
tensely  black  creatures,  moderately  clothed  in  loose 
summer  stuffs  whose  snowy  whiteness  made  the  black 
all  the  blacker  by  contrast.  Keeping  that  group  in 
my  mind,  I  can  compare  those  complexions  with  the 
white  ones  which  are  streaming  past  this  London 
window  now: 

A  lady.    Complexion,  new  parchment. 

Another  lady.    Complexion,  old  parchment. 

Another.    Pink  and  white,  very  fine. 

Man.     Grayish  skin,  with  purple  areas. 

Man.     Unwholesome  fish-belly  skin. 

Girl.     Sallow  face,  sprinkled  with  freckles. 

Old  woman.     Face  whitey-gray. 

Young  butcher.     Face  a  general  red  flush. 

Jaundiced  man.     Mustard  yellow. 


MARK    TWAIN 

Elderly  lady.  Colorless  skin,  with  two  conspicu 
ous  moles. 

Elderly  man — a  drinker.  Boiled-cauliflower  nose 
in  a  flabby  face  veined  with  purple  crinklings. 

Healthy  young  gentleman.    Fine  fresh  complexion. 

Sick  young  man.     His  face  a  ghastly  white. 

No  end  of  people  whose  skins  are  dull  and  char 
acterless  modifications  of  the  tint  which  we  miscall 
white.  Some  of  these  faces  are  pimply;  some  ex 
hibit  other  signs  of  diseased  blood;  some  show  scars 
of  a  tint  out  of  harmony  with  the  surrounding  shades 
of  color.  The  white  man's  complexion  makes  no 
concealments.  It  can't.  It  seems  to  have  been 
designed  as  a  catch-all  for  everything  that  can  dam 
age  it.  Ladies  have  to  paint  it,  and  powder  it, 
and  cosmetic  it,  and  diet  it  with  arsenic,  and  enamel 
it,  and  be  always  enticing  it,  and  persuading  it, 
and  pestering  it,  and  fussing  at  it,  to  make  it  beau 
tiful;  and  they  do  not  succeed.  But  these  efforts 
show  what  they  think  of  the  natural  complexion,  as 
distributed.  As  distributed  it  needs  these  helps. 
The  complexion  which  they  try  to  counterfeit  is 
one  which  nature  restricts  to  the  few — to  the  very 
few.  To  ninety-nine  persons  she  gives  a  bad  com 
plexion,  to  the  hundredth  a  good  one.  The  hun 
dredth  can  keep  it — how  long?  Ten  years,  perhaps. 

The  advantage  is  with  the  Zulu,  I  think.  He 
starts  with  a  beautiful  complexion,  and  it  will  last 
him  through.  And  as  for  the  Indian  brown — firm, 
smooth,  blemishless,  pleasant  and  restful  to  the  eye, 
afraid  of  no  color,  harmonizing  with  all  colors  and 
adding  a  grace  to  them  all — I  think  there  is  no  sort 

52 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

of  chance  for  the  average  white  complexion  against 
that  rich  and  perfect  tint. 

To  return  to  the  bungalow.  The  most  gorgeous 
costumes  present  were  worn  by  some  children.  They 
seemed  to  blaze,  so  bright  were  the  colors,  and  so 
brilliant  the  jewels  strung  over  the  rich  materials. 
These  children  were  professional  nautch-dancers,  and 
looked  like  girls,  but  they  were  boys.  They  got 
up  by  ones  and  twos  and  fours,  and  danced  and  sang 
to  an  accompaniment  of  weird  music.  Their  pos- 
turings  and  gesturings  were  elaborate  and  graceful, 
but  their  voices  were  stringently  raspy  and  un 
pleasant,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of  monotony 
about  the  tune. 

By  and  by,  there  was  a  burst  of  shouts  and  cheers 
outside  and  the  prince  with  his  train  entered  in  fine 
dramatic  style.  He  was  a  stately  man,  he  was 
ideally  costumed,  and  fairlv  festooned  with  ropes  of 
gems;  some  of  the  ropes  were  of  pearls,  some  were 
of  uncut  great  emeralds — emeralds  renowned  in 
Bombay  for  their  quality  and  value.  Their  size  was 
marvelous,  and  enticing  to  the  eye,  those  rocks. 
A  boy — a  princeling — was  with  the  prince,  and  he 
also  was  a  radiant  exhibition. 

The  ceremonies  were  not  tedious.  The  prince 
strode  to  his  throne  with  the  port  and  majesty — and 
the  sternness — of  a  Julius  Caesar  coming  to  receive 
and  receipt  for  a  back-country  kingdom  and  have 
it  over  and  get  out,  and  no  fooling.  There  was  a 
throne  for  the  young  prince,  too,  and  the  two  sat 
there,  side  by  side,  with  their  officers  grouped  at 
either  hand  and  most  accurately  and  creditably 

53 


MARK    TWAIN 

reproducing  the  pictures  which  one  sees  in  the 
books — pictures  which  people  in  the  prince's  line 
of  business  have  been  furnishing  ever  since  Solomon 
received  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and  showed  her  his 
things.  The  chief  of  the  Jain  delegation  read  his 
paper  of  congratulations,  then  pushed  it  into  a  beau 
tifully  engraved  silver  cylinder,  which  was  delivered 
with  ceremony  into  the  prince's  hands  and  at  once 
delivered  by  him  without  ceremony  into  the  hands 
of  an  officer.  I  will  copy  the  address  here.  It  is 
interesting,  as  showing  what  an  Indian  prince's  sub 
ject  may  have  opportunity  to  thank  him  for  in  these 
days  of  modern  English  rule,  as  contrasted  with 
what  his  ancestor  would  have  given  them  oppor 
tunity  to  thank  him  for  a  century  and  a  half  ago — 
the  days  of  freedom  unhampered  by  English  inter 
ference.  A  century  and  a  half  ago  an  address  of 
thanks  could  have  been  put  into  small  space.  It 
would  have  thanked  the  prince: 

1.  For  not  slaughtering  too  many  of  his  people  upon  mere 
caprice; 

2.  For  not  stripping  them  bare  by  sudden  and  arbitrary  tax 
levies,  and  bringing  famine  upon  them; 

3.  For  not  upon  empty  pretext  destroying  the  rich  and  seizing 
their  property; 

4.  For  not  killing,  blinding,  imprisoning,  or  banishing  the 
relatives  of  the  royal  house  to  protect  the  throne  from  possible 
plots; 

5.  For  not  betraying  the  subject  secretly,  for  a  bribe,  into  the 
hands  of  bands  of  professional  Thugs,  to  be  murdered  and  robbed 
in  the  prince's  back  lot. 

Those  were  rather  common  princely  industries  in 
the  old  times,  but  they  and  some  others  of  a  harsh 

54 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

sort  ceased  long  ago  under  English  rule.  Better 
industries  have  taken  their  place,  as  this  Address 
from  the  Jain  community  will  show: 

Your  Highness, — We  the  undersigned  members  of  the  Jain 
community  of  Bombay  have  the  pleasure  to  approach  your  High 
ness  with  the  expression  of  our  heartfelt  congratulations  on  the 
recent  conference  on  your  Highness  of  the  Knighthood  of  the 
Most  Exalted  Order  of  the  Star  of  India.  Ten  years  ago  we 
had  the  pleasure  and  privilege  of  welcoming  your  Highness  to  this 
city  under  circumstances  which  have  made  a  memorable  epoch 
in  the  history  of  your  State,  for  had  it  not  been  for  a  generous 
and  reasonable  spirit  that  your  Highness  displayed  in  the 
negotiations  between  the  Palitana  Durbar  and  the  Jain  com 
munity,  the  conciliatory  spirit  that  animated  our  people  could 
not  have  borne  fruit.  That  was  the  first  step  in  your  Highness's 
administration,  and  it  fitly  elicited  the  praise  of  the  Jain  com 
munity,  and  of'  the  Bombay  Government.  A  decade  of  your 
Highness's  administration,  combined  with  the  abilities,  training, 
and  acquirements  that  your  Highness  brought  to  bear  upon  it, 
has  justly  earned  for  your  Highness  the  unique  and  honorable 
distinction — the  Knighthood  of  the  Most  Exalted  Order  of  the 
Star  of  India,  which  we  understand  your  Highness  is  the  first 
to  enjoy  among  Chiefs  of  your  Highness's  rank  and  standing. 
And  we  assure  your  Highness  that  for  this  mark  of  honor  that 
has  been  conferred  on  you  by  her  Most  Gracious  Majesty, 
the  Queen-Empress,  we  feel  no  less  proud  than  your  Highness. 
Establishment  of  commercial  factories,  schools,  hospitals,  etc., 
by  your  Highness  in  your  State  has  marked  your  Highness's 
career  during  these  ten  years,  and  we  trust  that  your  Highness 
will  be  spared  to  rule  over  your  people  with  wisdom  and  fore 
sight,  and  foster  the  many  reforms  that  your  Highness  has  been 
pleased  to  introduce  in  your  State.  We  again  offer  your  High 
ness  our  warmest  felicitations  for  the  honor  that  has  been  con 
ferred  on  you.  We  beg  to  remain  your  Highness's  obedient 
servants. 

Factories,  schools,  hospitals,  reforms.  The  prince 
propagates  that  kind  of  things  in  the  modern  times, 
and  gets  knighthood  and  guns  for  it. 

55 


MARK    TWAIN 

After  the  address  the  prince  responded  with  snap 
and  brevity;  spoke  a  moment  with  half  a  dozen 
guests  in  English,  and  with  an  official  or  two  in  a 
native  tongue;  then  the  garlands  were  distributed  as 
usual,  and  the  function  ended. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  HOME  OF  THE  BLACK  DEATH 

Each  person  is  born  to  one  possession  which  outvalues  all  his  others — his  last 
breath.— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

TOWARD  midnight,  that  night,  there  was  another 
function.  This  was  a  Hindu  wedding  —  no,  I 
think  it  was  a  betrothal  ceremony.  Always  before, 
we  had  driven  through  streets  that  were  multitudi 
nous  and  tumultuous  with  picturesque  native  life, 
but  now  there  was  nothing  of  that.  We  seemed 
to  move  through  a  city  of  the  dead.  There  was 
hardly  a  suggestion  of  life  in  those  still  and  vacant 
streets.  Even  the  crows  were  silent.  But  every 
where  on  the  ground  lay  sleeping  natives — hundreds 
and  hundreds.  They  lay  stretched  at  full  length  and 
tightly  wrapped  in  blankets,  heads  and  all.  Their 
attitude  and  their  rigidity  counterfeited  death.  The 
plague  was  not  in  Bombay  then,  but  it  is  devastating 
the  city  now.  The  shops  are  deserted,  now,  half  of 
the  people  have  fled,  and  of  the  remainder  the  smitten 
perish  by  shoals  every  day.  No  doubt  the  city  looks 
now  in  the  daytime  as  it  looked  then  at  night. 
When  we  had  pierced  deep  into  the  native  quarter 
and  were  threading  its  narrow  dim  lanes,  we  had 
to  go  carefully,  for  men  were  stretched  asleep  all 
about,  and  there  was  hardly  room  to  drive  between 
them.  And  every  now  and  then  a  swarm  of  rats 

57 


MARK    TWAIN 

would  scamper  across  past  the  horses'  feet  in  the 
vague  light — the  forebears  of  the  rats  that  are  carry 
ing  the  plague  from  house  to  house  in  Bombay  now. 
The  shops  were  but  sheds,  little  booths  open  to  the 
street ;  and  the  goods  had  been  removed,  and  on  the 
counters  families  were  sleeping,  usually  with  an  oil- 
lamp  present.  Recurrent  dead- watches,  it  looked  like. 

But  at  last  we  turned  a  corner  and  saw  a  great 
glare  of  light  ahead.  It  was  the  home  of  the  bride, 
wrapped  in  a  perfect  conflagration  of  illuminations — 
mainly  gas-work  designs,  gotten  up  specially  for 
the  occasion.  Within  was  abundance  of  brilliancy — 
flames,  costumes,  colors,  decorations,  mirrors — it  was 
another  Aladdin  show. 

The  bride  was  a  trim  and  comely  little  thing  of 
twelve  years,  dressed  as  we  would  dress  a  boy, 
though  more  expensively  than  we  should  do  it,  of 
course.  She  moved  about  very  much  at  her  ease, 
and  stopped  and  talked  with  the  guests  and  allowed 
her  wedding  jewelry  to  be  examined.  It  was  very 
fine.  Particularly  a  rope  of  great  diamonds,  a  lovely 
thing  to  look  at  and  handle.  It  had  a  great  emerald 
hanging  to  it. 

The  bridegroom  was  not  present.  He  was  having 
betrothal  festivities  of  his  own  at  his  father's  house. 
As  I  understood  it,  he  and  the  bride  were  to  enter 
tain  company  every  night  and  nearly  all  night  for  a 
week  or  more,  then  get  married,  if  alive.  Both  of 
the  children  were  a  little  elderly,  as  brides  and  grooms 
go,  in  India — twelve;  they  ought  to  have  been  mar 
ried  a  year  or  two  sooner;  still  to  a  stranger  twelve 
seems  quite  young  enough. 

58 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

A  while  after  midnight  a  couple  of  celebrated  and 
high-priced  nautch-girls  appeared  in  the  gorgeous 
place,  and  danced  and  sang.  With  them  were  men 
who  played  upon  strange  instruments  which  made 
uncanny  noises  of  a  sort  to  make  one's  flesh  creep. 
One  of  these  instruments  was  a  pipe,  and  to  its 
music  the  girls  went  through  a  performance  which 
represented  snake-charming.  It  seemed  a  doubtful 
sort  of  music  to  charm  anything  with,  but  a  native 
gentleman  assured  me  that  snakes  like  it  and  will 
come  out  of  their  holes  and  listen  to  it  with  every 
evidence  of  refreshment  and  gratitude.  He  said 
that  at  an  entertainment  in  his  grounds  once,  the 
pipe  brought  out  half  a  dozen  snakes,  and  the  music 
had  to  be  stopped  before  they  would  be  persuaded 
to  go.  Nobody  wanted  their  company,  for  they 
were  bold,  familiar,  and  dangerous;  but  no  one 
would  kill  them,  of  course,  for  it  is  sinful  for  a  Hindu 
to  kill  any  kind  of  a  creature. 

We  withdrew  from  the  festivities  at  two  in  the 
morning.  Another  picture,  then — but  it  has  lodged 
itself  in  my  memory  rather  as  a  stage-scene  than  as 
a  reality.  It  is  of  a  porch  and  short  flight  of  steps 
crowded  with  dark  faces  and  ghostly  white  draperies 
flooded  with  the  strong  glare  from  the  dazzling  con 
centration  of  illuminations;  and  midway  of  the  steps 
one  conspicuous  figure  for  accent — a  turbaned  giant, 
with  a  name  according  to  his  size:  Rao  Bahadur 
Baskirao  Balinkanje  Pitale,  Vakeel  to  his  Highness 
the  Gaikwar<of  Baroda.  Without  him  the  picture 
would  not  have  been  complete;  and  if  his  name  had 
been  merely  Smith,  he  wouldn't  have  answered. 

59 


MARK    TWAIN 

Close  at  hand  on  house-fronts  on  both  sides  of  the 
narrow  street  were  illuminations  of  a  kind  commonly 
employed  by  the  natives — scores  of  glass  tumblers 
(containing  tapers)  fastened  a  few  inches  apart  all 
over  great  latticed  frames,  forming  starry  constella 
tions  which  showed  out  vividly  against  their  black 
backgrounds.  As  we  drew  away  into  the  distance 
down  the  dim  lanes  the  illuminations  gathered  to 
gether  into  a  single  mass,  and  glowed  out  of  the 
enveloping  darkness  like  a  sun. 

Then  again  the  deep  silence,  the  scurrying  rats, 
the  dim  forms  stretched  everywhere  on  the  ground; 
and  on  either  hand  those  open  booths  counterfeiting 
sepulchers,  with  counterfeit  corpses  sleeping  motion 
less  in  the  flicker  of  the  counterfeit  death-lamps. 
And  now,  a  year  later,  when  I  read  the  cablegrams 
I  seem  to  be  reading  of  what  I  myself  partly  saw — 
saw  before  it  happened — in  a  prophetic  dream,  as 
it  were.  One  cablegram  says,  ' '  Business  in  the  native 
town  is  about  suspended.  Except  the  wailing  and 
the  tramp  of  the  funerals.  There  is  but  little  life 
or  movement.  The  closed  shops  exceed  in  number 
those  that  remain  open."  Another  says  that 
325,000  of  the  people  have  fled  the  city  and  are 
carrying  the  plague  to  the  country.  Three  days 
later  comes  the  news,  "The  population  is  reduced 
by  half."  The  refugees  have  carried  the  disease  to 
Karachi;  "220  cases,  214  deaths."  A  day  or  two 
later,  "52  fresh  cases,  all  of  which  proved  fatal." 

The  plague  carries  with  it  a  terror  which  no  other 
disease  can  excite;  for  of  all  diseases  known  to  men 
it  is  the  deadliest — by  far  the  deadliest.  "Fifty-two 

60 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

fresh  cases — all  fatal."  It  is  the  Black  Death  alone 
that  slays  like  that.  We  can  all  imagine,  after  a 
fashion,  the  desolation  of  a  plague-stricken  city,  and 
the  stupor  of  stillness  broken  at  intervals  by  distant 
bursts  of  wailing,  marking  the  passing  of  funerals, 
here  and  there  and  yonder;  but  I  suppose  it  is 
not  possible  for  us  to  realize  to  ourselves  the  night 
mare  of  dread  and  fear  that  possesses  the  living 
who  are  present  in  such  a  place  and  cannot  get 
away.  That  half  million  fled  from  Bombay  in  a 
wild  panic  suggests  to  us  something  of  what  they 
were  feeling,  but  perhaps  not  even  they  could  realize 
what  the  half  million  were  feeling  whom  they  left 
stranded  behind  to  face  the  stalking  horror  without 
chance  of  escape.  Kinglake  was  in  Cairo  many 
years  ago  during  an  epidemic  of  the  Black  Death, 
and  he  has  imagined  the  terrors  that  creep  into  a 
man's  heart  at  such  a  time  and  follow  him  until  they 
themselves  breed  the  fatal  sign  in  the  armpit,  and 
then  the  delirium  with  confused  images,  and  home- 
dreams,  and  reeling  billiard- tables,  and  then  the 
sudden  blank  of  death: 

To  the  contagionist,  filled  as  he  is  with  the  dread  of  final  causes, 
having  no  faith  in  destiny,  nor  in  the  fixed  will  of  God,  and  with 
none  of  the  devil-may-care  indifference  which  might  stand  him 
instead  of  creeds — to  such  one,  every  rag  that  shivers  in  the 
breeze  of  a  plague-stricken  city  has  this  sort  of  sublimity.  If 
by  any  terrible  ordinance  he  be  forced  to  venture  forth,  he  sees 
death  dangling  from  every  sleeve;  and,  as  he  creeps  forward, 
he  poises  his  shuddering  limbs  between  the  imminent  jacket 
that  is  stabbing  at  his  right  elbow  and  the  murderous  pelisse  that 
threatens  to  mow  him  clean  down  as  it  sweeps  along  on  his 
left.  But  most  of  all  he  dreads  that  which  most  of  all  he  should 
love — the  touch  of  a  woman's  dress;  for  mothers  and  wives, 

61 


MARK     TWAIN 

hurrying  forth  on  kindly  errands  from  the  bedsides  of  the  dying, 
go  slouching  along  through  the  streets  more  wilfully  and  less 
courteously  than  the  men.  For  a  while  it  may  be  that  the  cau 
tion  of  the  poor  Levantine  may  enable  him  to  avoid  contact, 
but  sooner  or  later,  perhaps,  the  dreaded  chance  arrives;  that 
bundle  of  linen,  with  the  dark  tearful  eyes  at  the  top  of  it, 
that  labors  along  with  the  voluptuous  clumsiness  of  Grisi — she 
has  touched  the  poor  Levantine  with  the  hem  of  her  sleeve! 
From  that  dread  moment  his  peace  is  gone;  his  mind  forever 
hanging  upon  the  fatal  touch  invites  the  blow  which  he  fears; 
he  watches  for  the  symptoms  of  plague  so  carefully,  that  sooner 
or  later  they  come  in  truth.  The  parched  mouth  is  a  sign — his 
mouth  is  parched;  the  throbbing  brain — his  brain  does  throb; 
the  rapid  pulse — he  touches  his  own  wrist  (for  he  dares  not  ask 
counsel  of  any  man,  lest  he  be  deserted),  he  touches  his  wrist, 
and  feels  how  his  frighted  blood  goes  galloping  out  of  his  heart. 
There  is  nothing  but  the  fatal  swelling  that  is  wanting  to  make 
his  sad  conviction  complete;  immediately,  he  has  an  odd  feel 
under  the  arm — no  pain,  but  a  little  straining  of  the  skin;  he 
would  to  God  it  were  his  fancy  that  were  strong  enough  to  give 
him  that  sensation;  this  is  the  worst  of  all.  It  now  seems  to 
him  that  he  could  be  happy  and  contented  with  his  parched 
mouth,  and  his  throbbing  brain,  and  his  rapid  pulse,  if  only 
he  could  know  that  there  were  no  swelling  under  the  left  arm; 
but  dares  he  try? — in  a  moment  of  calmness  and  deliberation 
he  dares  not;  but  when  for  a  while  he  has  writhed  under  the 
torture  of  suspense,  a  sudden  strength  of  will  drives  him  to  seek 
and  know  his  fate;  he  touches  the  gland,  and  finds  the  skin  sane 
and  sound,  but  under  the  cuticle  there  lies  a  small  lump  like  a 
pistol-bullet,  that  moves  as  he  pushes  it.  Oh!  but  is  this  for 
all  certainty,  is  this  the  sentence  of  death?  Feel  the  gland  of 
the  other  arm.  There  is  not  the  same  lump  exactly,  yet  some 
thing  a  little  like  it.  Have  not  some  people  glands  naturally 
enlarged? — would  to  heaven  he  were  one!  So  he  does  for 
himself  the  work  of  the  plague,  and  when  the  Angel  of  Death 
thus  courted  does  in  deed  and  in  truth  come,  he  has  only  to 
finish  that  which  has  been  so  well  begun;  he  passes  his  fiery 
hand  over  the  brain  of  the  victim,  and  lets  him  rave  for  a  season, 
but  all  chance-wise,  of  people  and  things  once  dear,  or  of  people 
and  things  indifferent.  Once  more  the  poor  fellow  is  back  at 
his  home  in  fair  Provence,  and  sees  the  sun-dial  that  stood 

62 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

in  his  childhood's  garden — sees  his  mother,  and  the  long-since- 
forgotten  face  of  that  little  dear  sister — (he  sees  her,  he  says,  on  a 
Sunday  morning,  for  all  the  church-bells  are  ringing) ;  he  looks 
up  and  down  through  the  universe,  and  owns  it  well  piled  with 
bales  upon  bales  of  cotton,  and  cotton  eternal — so  much  so — 
that  he  feels — he  knows — he  swears  he  could  make  that  winning 
hazard,  if  the  billiard  -  table  would  not  slant  upward,  and  if 
the  cue  were  a  cue  worth  playing  with;  but  it  is  not — it's  a  cue 
that  won't  move — his  own  arm  won't  move — in  short,  there's 
the  devil  to  pay  in  the  brain  of  the  poor  Levantine;  and  perhaps, 
the  next  night  but  one  he  becomes  the  "life  and  the  soul "  of  some 
squalling  jackal  family,  who  fish  him  out  by  the  foot  from  his 
shallow  and  sandy  grave. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JUGGERNAUT,  SUTTEE  AND  THUGGEE 

Hunger  is  the  handmaid  of  genius. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ONE  day  during  our  stay  in  Bombay  there  was  a 
criminal  trial  of  a  most  interesting  sort,  a 
terribly  realistic  chapter  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
a  strange  mixture  of  simplicities  and  pieties  and 
murderous  practicalities,  which  brought  back  the 
forgotten  days  of  Thuggee  and  made  them  live 
again;  in  fact,  even  made  them  believable.  It  was 
a  case  where  a  young  girl  had  been  assassinated 
for  the  sake  of  her  trifling  ornaments,  things  not 
worth  a  laborer's  day's  wages  in  America.  This 
thing  could  have  been  done  in  many  other  countries, 
but  hardly  with  the  cold  business-like  depravity, 
absence  of  fear,  absence  of  caution,  destitution  of 
the  sense  of  horror,  repentance,  remorse,  exhibited 
in  this  case.  Elsewhere  the  murderer  would  have 
done  his  crime  secretly,  by  night,  and  without  wit 
nesses;  his  fears  would  have  allowed  him  no  peace 
while  the  dead  body  was  in  his  neighborhood;  he 
would  not  have  rested  until  he  had  gotten  it  safe 
out  of  the  way  and  hidden  as  effectually  as  he  could 
hide  it.  But  this  Indian  murderer  does  his  deed  in 
the  full  light  of  day,  cares  nothing  for  the  society  of 
witnesses,  is  in  no  way  incommoded  by  the  presence 
of  the  corpse,  takes  his  own  time  about  disposing 

64 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

of  it,  and  the  whole  party  are  so  indifferent,  so 
phlegmatic,  that  they  take  their  regular  sleep  as  if 
nothing  was  happening  and  no  halters  hanging  over 
them;  and  these  five  bland  people  close  the  episode 
with  a  religious  service.  The  thing  reads  like  a 
Meadows-Taylor  Thug-tale  of  half  a  century  ago,  as 
may  be  seen  by  the  official  report  of  the  trial: 

»  At  the  Mazagon  Police  Court  yesterday,  Superintendent  Nolan 
again  charged  Tookaram  Suntoo  Savat  Baya,  woman,  her 
daughter  Krishni,  and  Gopal  Vithoo  Bhanayker,  before  Mr. 
Phiroze  Hoshang  Dastur,  Fourth  Presidency  Magistrate,  under 
sections  302  and  109  of  the  Code,  with  having  on  the  night  of 
the  3oth  of  December  last  murdered  a  Hindu  girl  named  Cassi, 
aged  twelve,  by  strangulation,  in  the  room  of  a  chawl  at  Jakaria 
Bunder,  on  the  Sewri  road,  and  also  with  aiding  and  abetting 
each  other  in  the  commission  of  the  offense. 

Mr.  F.  A.  Little,  Public  Prosecutor,  conducted  the  case  on 
behalf  of  the  Crown,  the  accused  being  undefended. 

Mr.  Little  applied  under  the  provisions  of  the  Criminal 
Procedure  Code  to  tender  pardon  to  one  of  the  accused,  Krishni, 
woman,  aged  twenty-two,  on  her  undertaking  to  make  a  true 
and  full  statement  of  facts  under  which  the  deceased  girl  Cassi 
was  murdered. 

The  Magistrate  having  granted  the  Public  Prosecutor's  appli 
cation,  the  accused  Krishni  went  into  the  witness-box,  and,  on 
being  examined  by  Mr.  Little,  made  the  following  confession: — 
"  I  am  a  mill-hand  employed  at  the  Jubilee  Mill.  I  recollect  the 
day  (Tuesday)  on  which  the  body  of  the  deceased  Cassi  was 
found.  Previous  to  that  I  attended  the  mill  for  half  a  day,  and 
then  returned  home  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  when  I  saw  five 
persons  in  the  house,  viz.:  the  first  accused  Tookaram,  who  is 
my  paramour,  my  mother,  the  second  accused,  Baya,  the  accused 
Gopal,  and  two  guests  named  Ramji  Daji  and  Annaji  Gungaram. 
Tookaram  rented  the  room  of  the  chawl  situated  at  Jakaria 
Bunder  road  from  its  owner,  Girdharilal  Radhakishan,  and  in 
that  room  I,  my  paramour,  Tookaram,  and  his  younger  brother, 
Yesso  Mahadhoo,  live.  Since  his  arrival  in  Bombay  from  his 
native  country  Yesso  came  and  lived  with  us.  When  I  returned 

65 


MARK    TWAIN 

from  the  mill  on  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  I  saw  the  two  guests 
seated  on  a  cot  in  the  veranda,  and  a  few  minutes  after  the 
accused  Gopal  came  and  took  his  seat  by  their  side,  while  I 
and  my  mother  were  seated  inside  the  room.  Tookaram,  who  had 
gone  out  to  fetch  some  pan  and  betelnuts,  on  his  return  home 
had  brought  the  two  guests  with  him.  After  returning  home 
he  gave  them  pan  supari.  While  they  were  eating  it  my  mother 
came  out  of  the  room  and  inquired  of  one  of  the  guests,  Ramji, 
what  had  happened  to  his  foot,  when  he  replied  that  he  had 
tried  many  remedies,  but  they  had  done  him  no  good.  My 
mother  then  took  some  rice  in  her  hand  and  prophesied  that 
the  disease  which  Ramji  was  suffering  from  would  not  be  cured 
until  he  returned  to  his  native  country.  In  the  mean  time  the 
deceased  Cassi  came  from  the  direction  of  an  outhouse,  and 
stood  in  front  on  the  threshold  of  our  room  with  a  lota  in  her 
hand.  Tookaram  then  told  his  two  guests  to  leave  the  room, 
and  they  then  went  up  the  steps  toward  the  quarry.  After  the 
guests  had  gone  away,  Tookaram  seized  the  deceased,  who  had 
come  into  the  room,  and  he  afterward  put  a  waistband  around 
her,  and  tied  her  to  a  post  which  supports  a  loft.  After  doing 
this,  he  pressed  the  girl's  throat,  and,  having  tied  her  mouth 
with  the  dhotur  (now  shown  in  court),  fastened  it  to  the  post. 
Having  killed  the  girl,  Tookaram  removed  her  gold  head  orna 
ment  and  a  gold  putlee,  and  also  took  charge  of  her  lota.  Besides 
these  two  ornaments  Cassi  had  on  her  person  ear-studs,  a  nose 
ring,  some  silver  toe-rings,  two  necklaces,  a  pair  of  silver  anklets 
and  bracelets.  Tookaram  afterward  tried  to  remove  the  silver 
amulets,  the  ear-studs,  and  the  nose-ring;  but  he  failed  in  his 
attempt.  While  he  was  doing  so,  I,  my  mother,  and  Gopal 
were  present.  After  removing  the  two  gold  ornaments,  he 
handed  them  over  to  Gopal,  who  was  at  the  time  standing  near 
me.  When  he  killed  Cassi,  Tookaram  threatened  to  strangle 
me  also  if  I  informed  any  one  of  this.  Gopal  and  myself  were 
then  standing  at  the  door  of  our  room,  and  we  both  were  threat 
ened  by  Tookaram.  My  mother,  Baya,  had  seized  the  legs 
of  the  deceased  at  the  time  she  was  killed,  and  while  she  was 
being  tied  to  the  post.  Cassi  then  made  a  noise.  Tookaram 
and  my  mother  took  part  in  killing  the  girl.  After  the  murder 
her  body  was  wrapped  up  in  a  mattress  and  kept  on  the  loft 
over  the  door  of  our  room.  When  Cassi  was  strangled,  the  door 
of  the  room  was  fastened  from  the  inside  by  Tookaram.  This 

66 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

deed  was  committed  shortly  after  my  return  home  from  work 
in  the  mill.  Tookaram  put  the  body  of  the  deceased  in  the 
mattress,  and,  after  it  was  left  on  the  loft,  he  went  to  have  his 
head  shaved  by  a  barber  named  Sambhoo  Ragho,  who  lives 
only  one  door  away  from  me.  My  mother  and  myself  then 
remained  in  the  possession  of  the  information.  I  was  slapped 
and  threatened  by  my  paramour,  Tookaram,  and  that  was  the 
only  reason  why  I  did  not  inform  any  one  at  that  time.  When 
I  told  Tookaram  that  I  would  give  information  of  the  occurrence, 
he  slapped  me.  The  accused  Gopal  was  asked  by  Tookaram  to 
go  back  to  his  room,  and  he  did  so,  taking  away  with  him  the 
two  gold  ornaments  and  the  lota.  Yesso  Mahadhoo,  a  brother- 
in-law  of  Tookaram,  came  to  the  house  and  asked  Tookaram 
why  he  was  washing,  the  water-pipe  being  just  opposite. 
Tookaram  replied  that  he  was  washing  his  dhotur,  as  a  fowl  had 
polluted  it.  About  six  o'clock  of  the  evening  of  that  day  my 
mother  gave  me  three  pice  and  asked  me  to  buy  a  cocoanut, 
and  I  gave  the  money  to  Yesso,  who  went  and  fetched  a  cocoanut 
and  some  betel  leaves.  When  Yesso  and  others  were  in  the  room 
I  was  bathing,  and,  after  I  finished  my  bath,  my  mother  took 
the  cocoanut  and  the  betel  leaves  from  Yesso,  and  we  five  went 
to  the  sea.  The  party  consisted  of  Tookaram,  my  mother, 
Yesso,  Tookaram's  younger  brother,  and  myself.  On  reaching 
the  seashore,  my  mother  made  the  offering  to  the  sea,  and  prayed 
to  be  pardoned  for  what  we  had  done.  Before  we  went  to  the 
sea,  some  one  came  to  inquire  after  the  girl  Cassi.  The  police 
and  other  people  came  to  make  these  inquiries  both  before  and 
after  we  left  the  house  for  the  seashore.  The  police  questioned 
my  mother  about  the  girl,  and  she  replied  that  Cassi  had  come 
to  her  door,  but  had  left.  The  next  day  the  police  questioned 
Tookaram,  and  he,  too,  gave  a  similar  reply.  This  was  said 
the  same  night  when  the  search  was  made  for  the  girl.  After 
the  offering  was  made  to  the  sea,  we  partook  of  the  cocoanut 
and  returned  home,  when  my  mother  gave  me  some  food;  but 
Tookaram  did  not  partake  of  any  food  that  night.  After  dinner 
I  and  my  mother  slept  inside  the  room,  and  Tookaram  slept  on 
a  cot  near  his  brother-in-law,  Yesso  Mahadhoo,  just  outside 
the  door.  That  was  not  the  usual  place  where  Tookaram  slept. 
He  usually  slept  inside  the  room.  The  body  of  the  deceased 
remained  on  the  loft  when  I  went  to  sleep.  The  room  in  which 
we  slept  was  locked,  and  I  heard  that  my  paramour,  Tookaram, 

67 


MARK    TWAIN 

was  restless  outside.  About  three  o'clock  the  following  morning, 
Tookaram  knocked  at  the  door,  when  both  myself  and  my  mother 
opened  it.  He  then  told  me  to  go  to  the  steps  leading  to  the 
quarry,  and  see  if  any  one  was  about.  Those  steps  lead  to  a 
stable,  through  which  we  go  to  the  quarry  at  the  back  of  the 
compound.  When  I  got  to  the  steps  I  saw  no  one  there.  Took 
aram  asked  me  if  any  one  was  there,  and  I  replied  that  I  could 
see  no  one  about.  He  then  took  the  body  of  the  deceased  from 
the  loft,  and,  having  wrapped  it  up  in  his  saree,  asked  me  to 
accompany  him  to  the  steps  of  the  quarry,  and  I  did  so.  The 
saree  now  produced  here  was  the  same.  Besides  the  saree, 
there  was  also  a  choke  on  the  body.  He  then  carried  the  body 
in  his  arms,  and  went  up  the  steps,  through  the  stable,  and  then 
to  the  right  hand  toward  a  sahib's  bungalow,  where  Tookaram 
placed  the  body  near  a  wall.  All  the  time  I  and  my  mother 
were  with  him.  When  the  body  was  taken  down,  Yesso  was 
lying  on  the  cot.  After  depositing  the  body  under  the  wall,  we 
all  returned  home,  and  soon  after  5  A.M.  the  police  again  came 
and  took  Tookaram  away.  About  an  hour  after  they  returned 
and  took  me  and  my  mother  away.  We  were  questioned  about 
it,  when  I  made  a  statement.  Two  hours  later  I  was  taken  to 
the  room,  and  I  pointed  out  this  waistband,  the  dhotur,  the 
mattress,  and  the  wooden  post  to  Superintendent  Nolan  and 
Inspectors  Roberts  and  Rashanali,  in  the  presence  of  my  mother 
and  Tookaram.  Tookaram  killed  the  girl  Cassi  for  her  orna 
ments,  which  he  wanted  for  the  girl  to  whom  he  was  shortly 
going  to  be  married.  The  body  was  found  in  the  same  place 
where  it  was  deposited  by  Tookaram." 

The  criminal  side  of  the  native  has  always  been 
picturesque,  always  readable.  The  Thuggee  and  one 
or  two  other  particularly  outrageous  features  of  it 
have  been  suppressed  by  the  English,  but  there  is 
enough  of  it  left  to  keep  it  darkly  interesting.  One 
finds  evidence  of  these  survivals  in  the  newspapers. 
Macaulay  has  a  light-throwing  passage  upon  this 
matter  in  his  great  historical  sketch  of  Warren 
Hastings,  where  he  is  describing  some  effects  which 

68 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

followed  the  temporary  paralysis  of  Hastings 's  pow 
erful  government  brought  about  by  Sir  Philip  Francis 
and  his  party : 

The  natives  considered  Hastings  as  a  fallen  man;  and  they 
acted  after  their  kind.  Some  of  our  readers  may  have  seen, 
in  India,  a  cloud  of  crows  pecking  a  sick  vulture  to  death — no 
bad  type  of  what  happens  in  that  country  as  often  as  fortune 
deserts  one  who  has  been  great  and  dreaded.  In  an  instant 
all  the  sycophants,  who  had  lately  been  ready  to  lie  for  him, 
to  forge  for  him,  to  poison  for  him,  hasten  to  purchase  the  favor 
of  his  victorious  enemies  by  accusing  him.  An  Indian  govern 
ment  has  only  to  let  it  be  understood  that  it  wishes  a  particular 
man  to  be  ruined,  and  in  twenty-four  hours  it  will  be  furnished 
with  grave  charges,  supported  by  depositions  so  full  and  cir 
cumstantial  that  any  person  unaccustomed  to  Asiatic  mendacity 
would  regard  them  as  decisive.  It  is  well  if  the  signature  of 
the  destined  victim  is  not  counterfeited  at  the  foot  of  some 
illegal  compact,  and  if  some  treasonable  paper  is  not  slipped 
into  a  hiding-place  in  his  house. 

That  was  nearly  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago. 
An  article  in  one  of  the  chief  journals  of  India  (the 
Pioneer)  shows  that  in  some  respects  the  native  of 
to-day  is  just  what  his  ancestor  was  then.  Here  are 
niceties  of  so  subtle  and  delkate  a  sort  that  they  lift 
their  breed  of  rascality  to  a  place  among  the  fine 
arts,  and  almost  entitle  it  to  respect : 

The  records  of  the  Indian  courts  might  certainly  be  relied 
upon  to  prove  that  swindlers  as  a  class  in  the  East  come  very 
close  to,  if  they  do  not  surpass,  in  brilliancy  of  execution  and 
originality  of  design  the  most  expert  of  their  fraternity  in  Europe 
and  America.  India  in  especial  is  the  home  of  forgery.  There 
are  some  particular  districts  which  are  noted  as  marts  for  the 
finest  specimens  of  the  forger's  handiwork.  The  business  is 
carried  on  by  firms  who  possess  stores  of  stamped  papers  to  suit 
every  emergency.  They  habitually  lay  in  a  store  of  fresh  stamped 
papers  every  year,  and  some  of  the  older  and  more  thriving 


MARK    TWAIN 

houses  can  supply  documents  for  the  past  forty  years,  bearing  the 
proper  water-mark  and  possessing  the  genuine  appearance  of  age. 
Other  districts  have  earned  notoriety  for  skilled  perjury,  a 
pre-eminence  that  excites  a  respectful  admiration  when  one 
thinks  of  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  art,  and  persons  desirous 
of  succeeding  in  false  suits  are  ready  to  pay  handsomely  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  services  of  these  local  experts  as  witnesses. 

Various  instances  illustrative  of  the  methods  of 
those  swindlers  are  given.  They  exhibit  deep  cun 
ning  and  total  depravity  on  the  part  of  the  swindler 
and  his  pals,  and  more  obtuseness  on  the  part  of 
the  victim  than  one  would  expect  to  find  in  a  country 
where  suspicion  of  your  neighbor  must  surely  be 
one  of  the  earliest  things  learned.  The  favorite 
subject  is  the  young  fool  who  has  just  come  into 
a  fortune  and  is  trying  to  see  how  poor  a  use  he  can 
put  it  to.  I  will  quote  one  example: 

Sometimes  another  form  of  confidence  trick  is  adopted,  which 
is  invariably  successful.  The  particular  pigeon  is  spotted,  and, 
his  acquaintance  having  been  made,  he  is  encouraged  in  every 
form  of  vice.  When  the  friendship  is  thoroughly  established, 
the  swindler  remarks  to  the  young  man  that  he  has  a  brother 
who  has  asked  him  to  lend  him  Rs.  10,000.  The  swindler  says 
he  has  the  money  and  would  lend  it;  but,  as  the  borrower  is 
his  brother,  he  cannot  charge  interest.  So  he  proposes  that  he 
should  hand  the  dupe  the  money,  and  the  latter  should  lend 
it  to  the  swindler's  brother,  exacting  a  heavy  pre-payment  of 
interest,  which,  it  is  pointed  out,  they  may  equally  enjoy  in 
dissipation.  The  dupe  sees  no  objection,  and  on  the  appointed 
day  receives  Rs. 7,000  from  the  swindler,  which  he  hands  over 
to  the  confederate.  The  latter  is  profuse  in  his  thanks,  and 
executes  a  promissory  note  for  Rs.  10,000,  payable  to  bearer. 
The  swindler  allows  the  scheme  to  remain  quiescent  for  a  time, 
and  then  suggests  that,  as  the  money  has  not  been  repaid  and 
as  it  would  be  unpleasant  to  sue  his  brother,  it  would  be  better 
to  sell  the  note  in  the  bazar.  The  dupe  hands  the  note  over, 

70 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

for  the  money  he  advanced  was  not  his,  and,  on  being  informed 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  his  signature  on  the  back  so 
as  to  render  the  security  negotiable,  he  signs  without  any  hesita 
tion.  The  swindler  passes  it  on  to  confederates,  and  the  latter 
employ  a  respectable  firm  of  solicitors  to  ask  the  dupe  if  his 
signature  is  genuine.  He  admits  it  at  once,  and  his  fate  is  sealed. 
A  suit  is  filed  by  a  confederate  against  the  dupe,  two  accomplices 
being  made  co-defendants.  They  admit  their  signatures  as 
indorsers,  and  the  one  swears  he  bought  the  note  for  value 
from  the  dupe.  The  latter  has  no  defense,  for  no  court  would 
believe  the  apparently  idle  explanation  of  the  manner  in  which 
he  came  to  indorse  the  note. 

There  is  only  one  India!  It  is  the  only  country 
that  has  a  monopoly  of  grand  and  imposing  special 
ties.  When  another  country  has  a  remarkable  thing, 
it  cannot  have  it  all  to  itself — some  other  country 
has  a  duplicate.  But  India — that  is  different.  Its 
marvels  are  its  own;  the  patents  cannot  be  infringed; 
imitations  are  not  possible.  And  think  of  the  size 
of  them,  the  majesty  of  them,  the  weird  and  out 
landish  character  of  the  most  of  them! 

There  is  the  Plague,  the  Black  Death:  India 
invented  it ;  India  is  the  cradle  of  that  mighty  birth. 

The  Car  of  Juggernaut  was  India's  invention. 

So  was  the  Suttee;  and  within  the  time  of  men 
still  living  eight  hundred  widows  willingly,  and,  in 
fact,  rejoicingly,  burned  themselves  to  death  on  the 
bodies  of  their  dead  husbands  in  a  single  year. 
Eight  hundred  would  do  it  this  year  if  the  British 
Government  would  let  them. 

Famine  is  India's  specialty.  Elsewhere  famines 
are  inconsequential  incidents — in  India  they  are 
devastating  cataclysms;  in  one  case  they  annihilate 
hundreds;  in  the  other,  millions. 


MARK    TWAIN 

India  has  two  million  gods,  and  worships  them  all. 
In  religion  all  other  countries  are  paupers;  India  is 
the  only  millionaire. 

With  her  everything  is  on  a  giant  scale — even 
her  poverty;  no  other  country  can  show  anything 
to  compare  with  it.  And  she  has  been  used  to  wealth 
on  so  vast  a  scale  that  she  has  to  shorten  to  single 
words  the  expressions  describing  great  sums.  She 
describes  one  hundred  thousand  with  one  word — a 
lakh;  she  describes  ten  millions  with  one  word — a 
crore. 

In  the  bowels  of  the  granite  mountains  she  has 
patiently  carved  out  dozens  of  vast  temples,  and 
made  them  glorious  with  sculptured  colonnades  and 
stately  groups  of  statuary,  and  has  adorned  the 
eternal  walls  with  noble  paintings.  She  has  built 
fortresses  of  such  magnitude  that  the  show-strong 
holds  of  the  rest  of  the  world  are  but  modest  little 
things  by  comparison;  palaces  that  are  wonders  for 
rarity  of  materials,  delicacy  and  beauty  of  workman 
ship,  and  for  cost;  and  one  tomb  which  men  go 
around  the  globe  to  see.  It  takes  eighty  nations, 
speaking  eighty  languages,  to  people  her,  and  they 
number  three  hundred  millions. 

On  top  of  all  this  she  is  the  mother  and  home  of 
that  wonder  of  wonders — caste — and  of  that  mystery 
of  mysteries,  the  satanic  brotherhood  of  the  Thugs. 

India  had  the  start  of  the  whole  world  in  the  be 
ginning  of  things.  She  had  the  first  civilization; 
she  had  the  first  accumulation  of  material  wealth; 
she  was  populous  with  deep  thinkers  and  subtle 
intellects;  she  had  mines,  and  woods,  and  a  fruitful 

72 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

soil.  It  would  seem  as  if  she  should  have  kept  the 
lead,  and  should  be  to-day  not  the  meek  dependent 
of  an  alien  master,  but  mistress  of  the  world,  and 
delivering  law  and  command  to  every  tribe  and 
nation  in  it.  But,  in  truth,  there  was  never  any 
possibility  of  such  supremacy  for  her.  If  there  had 
been  but  one  India  and  one  language — but  there 
were  eighty  of  them!  Where  there  are  eighty 
nations  and  several  hundred  governments,  fighting 
and  quarreling  must  be  the  common  business  of  life; 
unity  of  purpose  and  policy  are  impossible;  out  of 
such  elements  supremacy  in  the  world  cannot  come. 
Even  caste  itself  could  have  had  the  defeating  effect 
of  a  multiplicity  of  tongues,  no  doubt;  for  it  sepa 
rates  a  people  into  layers,  and  layers,  and  still  other 
layers,  that  have  no  community  of  feeling  with  each 
other;  and  in  such  a  condition  of  things  as  that, 
patriotism  can  have  no  healthy  growth. 

It  was  the  division  of  the  country  into  so  many 
states  and  nations  that  made  Thuggee  possible  and 
prosperous.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  the  situation. 
But  perhaps  one  may  approximate  it  by  imagining 
the  states  of  our  Union  peopled  by  separate  nations, 
speaking  separate  languages,  with  guards  and 
custom-houses  strung  along  all  frontiers,  plenty  of 
interruptions  for  travelers  and  traders,  interpreters 
able  to  handle  all  the  languages  very  rare  or  non 
existent,  and  a  few  wars  always  going  on  here  and 
there  and  yonder  as  a  further  embarrassment  to 
commerce  and  excursioning.  It  would  make  inter 
communication  in  a  measure  ungeneral.  India  had 
eighty  languages,  and  more  custom-houses  than  cats. 

73 


MARK     TWAIN 

No  clever  man  with  the  instinct  of  a  highway  robber 
could  fail  to  notice  what  a  chance  for  business  was 
here  offered.  India  was  full  of  clever  men  with  the 
highwayman  instinct,  and  so,  quite  naturally,  the 
brotherhood  of  the  Thugs  came  into  being  to  meet 
the  long-felt  want. 

How  long  ago  that  was  nobody  knows — centuries, 
it  is  supposed.  One  of  the  chiefest  wonders  connected 
with  it  was  the  success  with  which  it  kept  its  secret. 
The  English  trader  did  business  in  India  two  hundred 
years  and  more  before  he  ever  heard  of  it;  and  yet 
it  was  assassinating  its  thousands  all  around  him 
every  year,  the  whole  time. 


74 


CHAPTER  VIH 

SLEEPING-CARS,  PLAIN  BUT  PLEASANT 

The  old  saw  says,  "Let   a   sleeping   dog   lie."     Right.     Still,  when  there   is 
much  at  stake  it  is  better  to  get  a  newspaper  to  do  it. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FROM  DIARY: 

/ANUARY  28.  I  learned  of  an  official  Thug-book 
the  other  day.  I  was  not  aware  before  that  there 
was  such  a  thing.  I  am  allowed  the  temporary 
use  of  it.  We  are  making  preparations  for  travel. 
Mainly  the  preparations  are  purchases  of  bedding. 
This  is  to  be  used  in  sleeping-berths  in  the  trains; 
in  private  houses  sometimes;  and  in  nine- tenths 
of  the  hotels.  It  is  not  realizable ;  and  yet  it  is  true. 
It  is  a  survival;  an  apparently  unnecessary  thing 
which  in  some  strange  way  has  outlived  the  condi 
tions  which  once  made  it  necessary.  It  comes  down 
from  a  time  when  the  railway  and  the  hotel  did  not 
exist;  when  the  occasional  white  traveler  went 
horseback  or  by  bullock-cart,  and  stopped  over 
night  in  the  small  dak-bungalow  provided  at  easy 
distances  by  the  government — a  shelter,  merely,  and 
nothing  more.  He  had  to  carry  bedding  along,  or 
do  without.  The  dwellings  of  the  English  residents 
are  spacious  and  comfortable  and  commodiously 
furnished,  and  surely  it  must  be  an  odd  sight  to 
see  half  a  dozen  guests  come  filing  into  such  a  place 
and  dumping  blankets  and  pillows  here  and  there 

75 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  everywhere.  But  custom  makes  incongruous 
things  congruous. 

One  buys  the  bedding,  with  waterproof  hold-all 
for  it,  at  almost  any  shop — there  is  no  difficulty 
about  it. 

January  30.  What  a  spectacle  the  railway-station 
was  at  train-time!  It  was  a  very  large  station,  yet 
when  we  arrived  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  world  was 
present — half  of  it  inside,  the  other  half  outside, 
and  both  halves,  bearing  mountainous  head-loads  of 
bedding  and  other  freight,  trying  simultaneously  to 
pass  each  other,  in  opposing  floods,  in  one  narrow 
door.  These  opposing  floods  were  patient,  gentle, 
long-suffering  natives,  with  whites  scattered  among 
them  at  rare  intervals;  and  wherever  a  white  man's 
native  servant  appeared,  that  native  seemed  to  have 
put  aside  his  natural  gentleness  for  the  time  and 
invested  himself  with  the  white  man's  privilege  of 
making  a  way  for  himself  by  promptly  shoving  all 
intervening  black  things  out  of  it.  In  these  exhibi 
tions  of  authority  Satan  was  scandalous.  He  was 
probably  a  Thug  in  one  of  his  former  incarnations. 

Inside  the  great  station,  tides  upon  tides  of  rain 
bow-costumed  natives  swept  along,  this  way  and 
that,  in  massed  and  bewildering  confusion,  eager, 
anxious,  belated,  distressed;  and  washed  up  to  the 
long  trains  and  flowed  into  them  with  their  packs 
and  bundles,  and  disappeared,  followed  at  once  by 
the  next  wash,  the  next  wave.  And  here  and  there, 
in  the  midst  of  this  hurly-burly,  and  seemingly  un 
disturbed  by  it,  sat  great  groups  of  natives  on  the 
bare  stone  floor — young,  slender  brown  women,  old 

76 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

gray  wrinkled  women,  little  soft  brown  babies,  old 
men,  young  men,  boys;  all  poor  people,  but  all 
the  females  among  them,  both  big  and  little,  be- 
jeweled  with  cheap  and  showy  nose-rings,  toe-rings, 
leglets,  and  armlets,  these  things  constituting  all 
their  wealth,  no  doubt.  These  silent  crowds  sat 
there  with  their  humble  bundles  and  baskets  and 
small  household  gear  about  them,  and  patiently 
waited — for  what?  A  train  that  was  to  start  at 
some  time  or  other  during  the  day  or  night!  They 
hadn't  timed  themselves  well,  but  that  was  no  mat 
ter — the  thing  had  been  so  ordered  from  on  high, 
therefore  why  worry?  There  was  plenty  of  time, 
hours  and  hours  of  it,  and  the  thing  that  was 
to  happen  would  happen  —  there  was  no  hurry 
ing  it. 

The  natives  traveled  third  class,  and  at  marvel- 
ously  cheap  rates.  They  were  packed  and  crammed 
into  the  cars  that  held  each  about  fifty;  and  it  was 
said  that  often  a  Brahman  of  the  highest  caste  was 
thus  brought  into  personal  touch,  and  consequent 
defilement,  with  persons  of  the  lowest  castes — no 
doubt  a  very  shocking  thing  if  a  body  could  under 
stand  it  and  properly  appreciate  it.  Yes,  a  Brahman 
who  didn't  own  a  rupee  and  couldn't  borrow  one 
might  have  to  touch  elbows  with  a  rich  hereditary 
lord  of  inferior  caste,  inheritor  of  an  ancient  title  a 
couple  of  yards  long,  and  he  would  just  have  to  stand 
it;  for  if  either  of  the  two  was  allowed  to  go  in  the 
cars  where  the  sacred  white  people  were,  it  probably 
wouldn't  be  the  august  poor  Brahman.  There  was 
an  immense  string  of  those  third-class  cars,  for  the 

77 


MARK    TWAIN 

natives  travel  by  hordes;  and  a  weary  hard  night  of 
it  the  occupants  would  have,  no  doubt. 

When  we  reached  our  car,  Satan  and  Barney  had 
already  arrived  there  with  their  train  of  porters  car 
rying  bedding  and  parasols  and  cigar-boxes,  and  were 
at  work.  We  named  him  Barney  for  short;  for  we 
couldn't  use  his  real  name,  there  wasn't  time. 

It  was  a  car  that  promised  comfort ;  indeed,  luxury. 
Yet  the  cost  of  it — well,  economy  could  no  further 
go;  even  in  France;  not  even  in  Italy.  It  was  built 
of  the  plainest  and  cheapest  partially  smoothed 
boards,  with  a  coating  of  dull  paint  on  them,  and 
there  was  nowhere  a  thought  of  decoration.  The 
floor  was  bare,  but  would  not  long  remain  so  when 
the  dust  should  begin  to  fly.  Across  one  end  of  the 
compartment  ran  a  netting  for  the  accommodation 
of  hand-baggage ;  at  the  other  end  was  a  door  which 
would  shut,  upon  compulsion,  but  wouldn't  stay 
shut;  it  opened  into  a  narrow  little  closet  which 
had  a  washbowl  in  one  end  of  it,  and  a  place  to  put 
a  towel,  in  case  you  had  one  with  you — and  you 
would  be  sure  to  have  towels,  because  you  buy  them 
with  the  bedding,  knowing  that  the  railway  doesn't 
furnish  them.  On  each  side  of  the  car,  and  running 
fore  and  aft,  was  a  broad  leather-covered  sofa — to 
sit  on  in  the  day  and  sleep  on  at  night.  Over  each 
sofa  hung,  by  straps,  a  wide,  flat,  leather-covered 
shelf — to  sleep  on.  In  the  daytime  you  can  hitch 
it  up  against  the  wall,  out  of  the  way — and  then 
you  have  a  big  unencumbered  and  most  comfortable 
room  to  spread  out  in.  No  car  in  any  country  is 
quite  its  equal  for  comfort  (and  privacy)  I  think. 

78 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

For  usually  there  are  but  two  persons  in  it;  and 
even  when  there  are  four  there  is  but  little  sense  of 
impaired  privacy.  Our  own  cars  at  home  can  sur 
pass  the  railway  world  in  all  details  but  that  one :  they 
have  no  coziness ;  there  are  too  many  people  together. 

At  the  foot  of  each  sofa  was  a  side-door,  for 
entrance  and  exit. 

Along  the  whole  length  of  the  sofa  on  each  side 
of  the  car  ran  a  row  of  large  single-plate  windows, 
of  a  blue  tint — blue  to  soften  the  bitter  glare  of  the 
sun  and  protect  one's  eyes  from  torture.  These 
could  be  let  down  out  of  the  way  when  one  wanted 
the  breeze.  In  the  roof  were  two  oil-lamps  which 
gave  a  light  strong  enough  to  read  by;  each  had  a 
green-cloth  attachment  by  which  it  could  be  covered 
when  the  light  should  be  no  longer  needed. 

While  we  talked  outside  with  friends,  Barney  and 
Satan  placed  the  hand-baggage,  books,  fruits,  and 
soda-bottles  in  the  racks,  and  the  hold-alls  and  heavy 
baggage  in  the  closet,  hung  the  overcoats  and  sun- 
helmets  and  towels  on  the  hooks,  hoisted  the  two 
bed-shelves  up  out  of  the  way,  then  shouldered  their 
bedding  and  retired  to  the  third  class. 

Now  then,  you  see  what  a  handsome,  spacious, 
light,  airy,  homelike  place  it  was,  wherein  to  walk 
up  and  down,  or  sit  and  write,  or  stretch  out  and 
read  and  smoke.  A  central  door  in  the  forward  end 
of  the  compartment  opened  into  a  similar  compart 
ment.  It  was  occupied  by  my  wife  and  daughter. 
About  nine  in  the  evening,  while  we  halted  awhile 
at  a  station,  Barney  and  Satan  came  and  undid  the 
clumsy  big  hold-alls,  and  spread  the  bedding  on  the 

79 


MARK    TWAIN 

sofas  in  both  compartments — mattresses,  sheets,  gay 
coverlets,  pillows,  all  complete;  there  are  no  cham 
bermaids  in  India — apparently  it  was  an  office  that 
was  never  heard  of.  Then  they  closed  the  com 
municating  door,  nimbly  tidied  up  our  place,  put 
the  night-clothing  on  the  beds  and  the  slippers  under 
them,  then  returned  to  their  own  quarters. 

January  jr.  It  was  novel  and  pleasant,  and  I 
stayed  awake  as  long  as  I  could,  to  enjoy  it,  and  to 
read  about  those  strange  people  the  Thugs.  In  my 
sleep  they  remained  with  me,  and  tried  to  strangle 
me.  The  leader  of  the  gang  was  that  giant  Hindu 
who  was  such  a  picture  in  the  strong  light  when  we 
were  leaving  those  Hindu  betrothal  festivities  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning — Rao  Bahadur  Baskirao 
Balinkanje  Pitale,  Vakeel  to  the  Gaikwar  of  Baroda. 
It  was  he  that  brought  me  the  invitation  from  his 
master  to  go  to  Baroda  and  lecture  to  that  prince — 
and  now  he  was  misbehaving  in  my  dreams.  But  all 
things  can  happen  in  dreams.  It  is,  indeed,  as  the 
Sweet  Singer  of  Michigan  says — irrelevantly,  of 
course,  for  the  one  and  unfailing  great  quality  which 
distinguishes  her  poetry  from  Shakespeare's  and  makes 
it  precious  to  us  is  its  stern  and  simple  irrelevancy : 

My  heart  was  gay  and  happy, 

This  was  ever  in  my  mind, 
There  is  better  times  a  coming, 

And  I  hope  some  day  to  find 
Myself  capable  of  composing, 

It  was  my  heart's  delight 
To  compose  on  a  sentimental  subject 

If  it  came  in  my  mind  just  right.1 

1  The  Sentimental  Song  Book,  p.  49;  theme,  "The  Author's  Early 
Life,"  19th  stanza. 

80 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Baroda.  Arrived  at  seven  this  morning.  The  dawn 
was  just  beginning  to  show.  It  was  forlorn  to  have 
to  turn  out  in  a  strange  place  at  such  a  time,  and  the 
blinking  lights  in  the  station  made  it  seem  night  still. 
But  the  gentlemen  who  had  come  to  receive  us  were 
there  with  their  servants,  and  they  made  quick  work; 
there  was  no  lost  time.  We  were  soon  outside  and 
moving  swiftly  through  the  soft  gray  light,  and 
presently  were  comfortably  housed — with  more  ser 
vants  to  help  than  we  were  used  to,  and  with  rather 
embarrassingly  important  officials  to  direct  them. 
But  it  was  custom;  they  spoke  Ballarat  English,  their 
bearing  was  charming  and  hospitable,  and  so  all 
went  well. 

Breakfast  was  a  satisfaction.  Across  the  lawns  was 
visible  in  the  distance  through  the  open  window  an 
Indian  well,  with  two  oxen  tramping  leisurely  up  and 
down  long  inclines,  drawing  water;  and  out  of  the 
stillness  came  the  suffering  screech  of  the  machinery 
— not  quite  musical,  and  yet  soothingly  melancholy 
and  dreamy  and  reposeful — a  wail  of  lost  spirits, 
one  might  imagine.  And  commemorative  and  remi 
niscent,  perhaps;  for  of  course  the  Thugs  used  to 
throw  people  down  that  well  when  they  were  done 
with  them. 

After  breakfast  the  day  began,  a  sufficiently  busy 
one.  We  were  driven  by  winding  roads  through  a 
vast  park,  with  noble  forests  of  great  trees,  and  with 
tangles  and  jungles  of  lovely  growths  of  a  humbler 
sort;  and  at  one  place  three  large  gray  apes  came 
out  and  pranced  across  the  road — a  good  deal  of  a 
surprise  and  an  unpleasant  one,  for  such  creatures 

81 


MARK    TWAIN 

belong  in  the  menagerie,  and  they  look  artificial  and 
out  of  place  in  a  wilderness. 

We  came  to  the  city,  by  and  by,  and  drove  all 
through  it.  Intensely  Indian,  it  was,  and  crumbly, 
and  moldering,  and  immemorially  old,  to  all  ap 
pearance.  And  the  houses — oh,  indescribably  quaint 
and  curious  they  were,  with  their  fronts  an  elaborate 
lacework  of  intricate  and  beautiful  wood-carving, 
and  now  and  then  further  adorned  with  rude  pic 
tures  of  elephants  and  princes  and  gods  done  in 
shouting  colors;  and  all  the  ground  floors  along 
these  cramped  and  narrow  lanes  occupied  as  shops- 
shops  unbelievably  small  and  impossibly  packed 
with  merchantable  rubbish,  and  with  nine-tenths- 
naked  natives  squatting  at  their  work  of  hammering, 
pounding,  brazing,  soldering,  sewing,  designing,  cook 
ing,  measuring  out  grain;  grinding  it,  repairing  idols— 
and  then  the  swarm  of  ragged  and  noisy  humanity 
under  the  horses'  feet  and  everywhere,  and  the  per 
vading  reek  and  fume  and  smell!  It  was  all  won 
derful  and  delightful. 

Imagine  a  file  of  elephants  marching  through  such 
a  crevice  of  a  street  and  scraping  the  paint  off  both 
sides  of  it  with  their  hides.  How  big  they  must 
look,  and  how  little  they  must  make  the  houses 
look;  and  when  the  elephants  are  in  their  glittering 
court  costume,  what  a  contrast  they  must  make 
with  the  humble  and  sordid  surroundings.  And 
when  a  mad  elephant  goes  raging  through,  belt 
ing  right  and  left  with  his  trunk,  how  do  these 
swarms  of  people  get  out  of  the  way?  I  suppose 
it  is  a  thing  which  happens  now  and  then  in 

82 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

the   mad   season    (for  elephants  have  a  mad  sea 
son). 

I  wonder  how  old  the  town  is.  There  are  patches 
of  building — massive  structures,  monuments,  appar 
ently — that  are  so  battered  and  worn,  and  seemingly 
so  tired  and  so  burdened  with  the  weight  of  age, 
and  so  dulled  and  stupefied  with  trying  to  remember 
things  they  forgot  before  history  began,  that  they 
give  one  the  feeling  that  they  must  have  been  a  part 
of  original  Creation.  This  is  indeed  one  of  the  oldest 
of  the  princedoms  of  India,  and  has  always  been 
celebrated  for  its  barbaric  pomps  and  splendors,  and 
for  the  wealth  of  its  princes. 


CHAPTER  IX 

I  RIDE  AN  ELEPHANT BY  REQUEST 

It  takes  your  enemy  and  your  friend,  working  together,  to  hurt  you  to  the 
heart;  the  one  to  slander  you  and  the  other  to  get  the  news  to  you. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

OUT  of  the  town  again;  a  long  drive  through 
open  country,  by  winding  roads  among  secluded 
villages  nestling  in  the  inviting  shade  of  tropic 
vegetation,  a  Sabbath  stillness  everywhere,  some 
times  a  pervading  sense  of  solitude,  but  always 
barefoot  natives  gliding  by  like  spirits,  without 
sound  of  footfall,  and  others  in  the  distance  dissolv 
ing  away  and  vanishing  like  the  creatures  of  dreams. 
Now  and  then  a  string  of  stately  camels  passed  by — 
always  interesting  things  to  look  at — and  they  were 
velvet-shod  by  nature,  and  made  no  noise.  Indeed, 
there  were  no  noises  of  any  sort  in  this  paradise. 
Yes,  once  there  was  one,  for  a  moment:  a  file  of 
native  convicts  passed  along  in  charge  of  an  officer, 
and  we  caught  the  soft  clink  of  their  chains.  In  a 
retired  spot,  resting  himself  under  a  tree,  was  a  holy 
person  —  a  naked  black  fakir,  thin  and  skinny, 
and  whitey-gray  all  over  with  ashes. 

By  and  by  to  the  elephant  stables,  and  I  took  a 
ride;  but  it  was  by  request — I  did  not  ask  for  it, 
and  didn't  want  it ;  but  I  took  it,  because  otherwise 
they  would  have  thought  I  was  afraid,  which  I  was. 
The  elephant  kneels  down,  by  command — one  end 

84 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

of  him  at  a  time — and  you  climb  the  ladder  and 
get  into  the  howdah,  and  then  he  gets  up,  one  end 
at  a  time,  just  as  a  ship  gets  up  over  a  wave;  and 
after  that,  as  he  strides  monstrously  about,  his 
motion  is  much  like  a  ship's  motion.  The  mahout 
bores  into  the  back  of  his  head  with  a  great  iron 
prod,  and  you  wonder  at  his  temerity  and  at  the 
elephant's  patience,  and  you  think  that  perhaps  the 
patience  will  not  last;  but  it  does,  and  nothing  hap 
pens.  The  mahout  talks  to  the  elephant  in  a  low 
voice  all  the  time,  and  the  elephant  seems  to  under 
stand  it  all  and  to  be  pleased  with  it;  and  he  obeys 
every  order  in  the  most  contented  and  docile  way. 
Among  these  twenty-five  elephants  were  two  which 
were  larger  than  any  I  had  ever  seen  before,  and  if  I 
had  thought  I  could  learn  to  not  be  afraid,  I  would 
have  taken  one  of  them  while  the  police  were  not 
looking. 

In  the  howdah-house  there  were  many  howdahs 
that  were  made  of  silver,  one  of  gold,  and  one  of 
old  ivory,  and  equipped  with  cushions  and  canopies 
of  rich  and  costly  stuffs.  The  wardrobe  of  the  ele 
phants  was  there,  too;  vast  velvet  covers  stiff  and 
heavy  with  gold  embroidery;  and  bells  of  silver  and 
gold;  and  ropes  of  these  metals  for  fastening  the 
things  on — harness,  so  to  speak;  and  monster  hoops 
of  massive  gold  for  the  elephant  to  wear  on  his 
ankles  when  he  is  out  in  procession  on  business  of 
state. 

But  we  did  not  see  the  treasury  of  crown  jewels, 
and  that  was  a  disappointment,  for  in  mass  and  rich 
ness  it  ranks  only  second  in  India.  By  mistake  we 

85 


MARK     TWAIN 

were  taken  to  see  the  new  palace  instead,  and  we 
used  up  the  last  remnant  of  our  spare  time  there. 
It  was  a  pity,  too;  for  the  new  palace  is  mixed 
modern  American-European,  and  has  not  a  merit 
except  costliness.  It  is  wholly  foreign  to  India,  and 
impudent  and  out  of  place.  The  architect  has  es 
caped.  This  comes  of  overdoing  the  suppression  of 
the  Thugs;  they  had  their  merits.  The  old  palace 
is  Oriental  and  charming,  and  in  consonance  with 
the  country.  The  old  palace  would  still  be  great  if 
there  were  nothing  of  it  but  the  spacious  and  lofty 
hall  where  the  durbars  are  held.  It  is  not  a  good 
place  to  lecture  in,  on  account  of  the  echoes,  but  it 
is  a  good  place  to  hold  durbars  in  and  regulate  the 
affairs  of  a  kingdom,  and  that  is  what  it  is  for.  If  I 
had  it  I  would  have  a  durbar  every  day,  instead  of 
once  or  twice  a  year. 

The  prince  is  an  educated  gentleman.  His  culture 
is  European.  He  has  been  in  Europe  five  times. 
People  say  that  this  is  costly  amusement  for  him, 
since  in  crossing  the  sea  he  must  sometimes  be 
obliged  to  drink  water  from  vessels  that  are  more  or 
less  public,  and  thus  damage  his  caste.  To  get  it 
purified  again  he  must  make  pilgrimage  to  some 
renowned  Hindu  temples  and  contribute  a  fortune 
or  two  to  them.  His  people  are  like  the  other 
Hindus,  profoundly  religious;  and  they  could  not 
be  content  with  a  master  who  was  impure. 

We  failed  to  see  the  jewels,  but  we  saw  the  gold 
cannon  and  the  silver  one — they  seemed  to  be  six- 
pounders.  They  were  not  designed  for  business, 
but  for  salutes  upon  rare  and  particularly  important 

86 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

state  occasions.  An  ancestor  of  the  present  Gaikwar 
had  the  silver  one  made,  and  a  subsequent  ancestor 
had  the  gold  one  made,  in  order  to  outdo  him. 

This  sort  of  artillery  is  in  keeping  with  the  tradi 
tions  of  Baroda,  which  was  of  old  famous  for  style 
and  show.  It  used  to  entertain  visiting  rajahs  and 
viceroys  with  tiger-fights,  elephant-fights,  illumina 
tions,  and  elephant-processions  of  the  most  glittering 
and  gorgeous  character. 

It  makes  the  circus  a  pale,  poor  thing. 

In  the  train,  during  a  part  of  the  return  journey 
from  Baroda,  we  had  the  company  of  a  gentleman 
who  had  with  him  a  remarkable-looking  dog.  I  had 
not  seen  one  of  its  kind  before,  as  far  as  I  could 
remember;  though  of  course  I  might  have  seen  one 
and  not  noticed  it,  for  I  am  not  acquainted  with 
dogs,  but  only  with  cats.  This  dog's  coat  was 
smooth  and  shiny  and  black,  and  I  think  it  had  tan 
trimmings  around  the  edges  of  the  dog,  and  perhaps 
underneath.  It  was  a  long,  low  dog,  with  very 
short,  strange  legs — legs  that  curved  inboard,  some 
thing  like  parentheses  turned  the  wrong  way  (. 
Indeed,  it  was  made  on  the  plan  of  a  bench  for 
length  and  lowness.  It  seemed  to  be  satisfied,  but 
I  thought  the  plan  poor,  and  structurally  weak,  on 
account  of  the  distance  between  the  forward  sup 
ports  and  those  abaft.  With  age  the  dog's  back 
was  likely  to  sag ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  would 
have  been  a  stronger  and  more  practicable  dog  if  it 
had  had  some  more  legs.  It  had  not  begun  to  sag 
yet,  but  the  shape  of  the  legs  showed  that  the  undue 
weight  imposed  upon  them  was  beginning  to  tell. 

87 


MARK    TWAIN 

It  had  a  long  nose,  and  floppy  ears  that  hung  down, 
and  a  resigned  expression  of  countenance.  I  did 
not  like  to  ask  what  kind  of  a  dog  it  was,  or  how  it 
came  to  be  deformed,  for  it  was  plain  that  the 
gentleman  was  very  fond  of  it,  and  naturally  he 
could  be  sensitive  about  it.  From  delicacy  I  thought 
it  best  not  to  seem  to  notice  it  too  much.  No  doubt 
a  man  with  a  dog  like  that  feels  just  as  a  person  does 
who  has  a  child  that  is  out  of  true.  The  gentleman 
was  not  merely  fond  of  the  dog,  he  was  also  proud 
of  it — just  the  same,  again,  as  a  mother  feels  about 
her  child  when  it  is  an  idiot.  I  could  see  that  he 
was  proud  of  it,  notwithstanding  it  was  such  a  long 
dog  and  looked  so  resigned  and  pious.  It  had  been 
all  over  the  world  with  him,  and  had  been  pilgriming 
like  that  for  years  and  years.  It  had  traveled  fifty 
thousand  miles  by  sea  and  rail,  and  had  ridden  in 
front  of  him  on  his  horse  eight  thousand.  It  had  a 
silver  medal  from  the  Geographical  Society  of  Great 
Britain  for  its  travels,  and  I  saw  it.  It  had  won 
prizes  in  dog-shows,  both  in  India  and  in  England— 
I  saw  them. 

He  said  its  pedigree  was  on  record  in  the  Kennel 
Club,  and  that  it  was  a  well-known  dog.  He  said  a 
great  many  people  in  London  could  recognize  it  the 
moment  they  saw  it.  I  did  not  say  anything,  but  I 
did  not  think  it  anything  strange;  I  should  know 
that  dog  again,  myself,  yet  I  am  not  careful  about 
noticing  dogs.  He  said  that  when  he  walked  along 
in  London,  people  often  stopped  and  looked  at  the 
dog.  Of  course  I  did  not  say  anything,  for  I  did 
not  want  to  hurt  his  feelings,  but  I  could  have  ex- 

88 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

plained  to  him  that  if  you  take  a  great  long  low  dog 
like  that  and  waddle  it  along  the  street  anywhere  in 
the  world  and  not  charge  anything,  people  will  stop 
and  look.  He  was  gratified  because  the  dog  took 
prizes.  But  that  was  nothing;  if  I  were  built  like 
that  I  could  take  prizes  myself.  I  wished  I  knew 
what  kind  of  a  dog  it  was,  and  what  it  was  for,  but 
I  could  not  very  well  ask,  for  that  would  show  that 
I  did  not  know.  Not  that  I  want  a  dog  like  that, 
but  only  to  know  the  secret  of  its  birth. 

I  think  he  was  going  to  hunt  elephants  with  it, 
because  I  know,  from  remarks  dropped  by  him, 
that  he  has  hunted  large  game  in  India  and  Africa, 
and  likes  it.  But  I  think  that  if  he  tries  to  hunt 
elephants  with  it,  he  is  going  to  be  disappointed.  I 
do  not  believe  that  it  is  suited  for  elephants.  It 
lacks  energy,  it  lacks  force  of  character,  it  lacks 
bitterness.  These  things  all  show  in  the  meekness 
and  resignation  of  its  expression.  It  would  not 
attack  an  elephant,  I  am  sure  of  it.  It  might  not 
run  if  it  saw  one  coming,  but  it  looked  to  me  like  a 
dog  that  would  sit  down  and  pray. 

I  wish  he  had  told  me  what  breed  it  was,  if  there 
are  others ;  but  I  shall  know  the  dog  next  time,  and 
then  if  I  can  bring  myself  to  it  I  will  put  delicacy 
aside  and  ask.  If  I  seem  strangely  interested  in 
dogs,  I  have  a  reason  for  it;  for  a  dog  saved  me  from 
an  embarrassing  position  once,  and  that  has  made 
me  grateful  to  these  animals;  and  if  by  study  I 
could  learn  to  tell  some  of  the  kinds  from  the  others, 
I  should  be  greatly  pleased.  I  only  know  one  kind 
apart,  yet,  and  that  is  the  kind  that  saved  me  that 

89 


MARK     TWAIN 

time.  I  always  know  that  kind  when  I  meet  it, 
and  if  it  is  hungry  or  lost  I  take  care  of  it.  The 
matter  happened  in  this  way : 

It  was  years  and  years  ago.  I  had  received  a 
note  from  Mr.  Augustin  Daly  of  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Theater,  asking  me  to  call  the  next  time  I  should  be 
in  New  York.  I  was  writing  plays,  in  those  days, 
and  he  was  admiring  them  and  trying  to  get  me  a 
chance  to  get  them  played  in  Siberia.  I  took  the 
first  train — the  early  one — the  one  that  leaves  Hart 
ford  at  eight-twenty-nine  in  the  morning.  At  New 
Haven  I  bought  a  paper,  and  found  it  filled  with 
glaring  display-lines  about  a  "bench-show"  there. 
I  had  often  heard  of  bench-shows,  but  had  never 
felt  any  interest  in  them,  because  I  supposed  they 
were  lectures  that  were  not  well  attended.  It  turned 
out,  now,  that  it  was  not  that,  but  a  dog-show. 
There  was  a  double-leaded  column  about  the  king- 
feature  of  this  one,  which  was  called  a  Saint  Bernard, 
and  was  worth  ten  thousand  dollars,  and  was  known 
to  be  the  largest  and  finest  of  his  species  in  the 
world.  I  read  all  this  with  interest,  because  out  of 
my  school-boy  readings  I  dimly  remembered  how  the 
priests  and  pilgrims  of  St.  Bernard  used  to  go  out 
in  the  storms  and  dig  these  dogs  out  of  the  snow 
drifts  when  lost  and  exhausted,  and  give  them 
brandy  and  save  their  lives,  and  drag  them  to  the 
monastery  and  restore  them  with  gruel. 

Also,  there  was  a  picture  of  this  prize-dog  in  the 
paper,  a  noble  great  creature  with  a  benignant 
countenance,  standing  by  a  table.  He  was  placed 
in  that  way  so  that  one  could  get  a  right  idea  of  his 

90 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

great  dimensions.  You  could  see  that  he  was  just  a 
shade  higher  than  the  table — indeed,  a  huge  fellow 
for  a  dog.  Then  there  was  a  description  which  went 
into  the  details.  It  gave  his  enormous  weight — 
I5°//2  pounds,  and  his  length — 4  feet  2  inches, 
from  stem  to  stern-post;  and  his  height — 3  feet  i 
inch,  to  the  top  of  his  back.  The  pictures  and  the 
figures  so  impressed  me,  that  I  could  see  the  beauti 
ful  colossus  before  me,  and  I  kept  on  thinking  about 
him  for  the  next  two  hours;  then  I  reached  New 
York,  and  he  dropped  out  of  my  mind. 

In  the  swirl  and  tumult  of  the  hotel  lobby  I  ran 
across  Mr.  Daly's  comedian,  the  late  James  Lewis, 
of  beloved  memory,  and  I  casually  mentioned  that  I 
was  going  to  call  upon  Mr.  Daly  in  the  evening  at 
eight.  He  looked  surprised,  and  said  he  reckoned 
not.  For  answer  I  handed  him  Mr.  Daly's  note. 
Its  substance  was:  "Come  to  my  private  den,  over 
the  theater,  where  we  cannot  be  interrupted.  And 
come  by  the  back  way,  not  the  front.  No.  642 
Sixth  Avenue  is  a  cigar  shop;  pass  through  it  and 
you  are  in  a  paved  court,  with  high  buildings  all 
around;  enter  the  second  door  on  the  left,  and  come 
up-stairs." 

"Is  this  all?" 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

"Well,  you'll  never  get  in." 

"Why?" 

"Because  you  won't.  Or  if  you  do  you  can 
draw  on  me  for  a  hundred  dollars;  for  you  will  be 
the  first  man  that  has  accomplished  it  in  twenty-five 
years.  I  can't  think  what  Mr.  Daly  can  have  been 


MARK    TWAIN 

absorbed  in.  He  has  forgotten  a  most  important 
detail,  and  he  will  feel  humiliated  in  the  morning 
when  he  finds  that  you  tried  to  get  in  and  couldn't." 

"Why,  what  is  the  trouble?" 

'Til  tell  you.    You  see— " 

At  that  point  we  were  swept  apart  by  the  crowd, 
somebody  detained  me  with  a  moment's  talk,  and 
we  did  not  get  together  again.  But  it  did  not 
matter;  I  believed  he  was  joking,  anyway. 

At  eight  in  the  evening  I  passed  through  the  cigar 
shop  and  into  the  court  and  knocked  at  the  second 
door. 

"Come  in!" 

I  entered.  It  was  a  small  room,  carpetless,  dusty, 
with  a  naked  deal  table,  and  two  cheap  wooden 
chairs  for  furniture.  A  giant  Irishman  was  standing 
there,  with  shirt-collar  and  vest  unbuttoned,  and  no 
coat  on.  I  put  my  hat  on  the  table,  and  was  about 
to  say  something,  when  the  Irishman  took  the  inn 
ings  himself.  And  not  with  marked  courtesy  of  tone : 

"Well,  sor,  what  will  you  have?" 

I  was  a  little  disconcerted,  and  my  easy  confidence 
suffered  a  shrinkage.  The  man  stood  as  motionless 
as  Gibraltar,  and  kept  his  unblinking  eye  upon  me. 
It  was  very  embarrassing,  very  humiliating.  I  stam 
mered  at  a  false  start  or  two;  then: 

"I  have  just  run  down  from — " 

"Av  ye  plaze,  ye'll  not  smoke  here,  ye  under 
stand." 

I  laid  my  cigar  on  the  window-ledge;  chased  my 
flighty  thoughts  a  moment,  then  said  in  a  placating 
manner: 

92 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

"I — I  have  come  to  see  Mr.  Daly." 

"Oh,  ye  have,  have  ye?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  ye'll  not  see  him." 

"But  he  asked  me  to  come." 

"Oh,  he  did,  did  he?" 

"Yes,  he  sent  me  this  note,  and — " 

"Lemme  see  it." 

For  a  moment  I  fancied  there  would  be  a  change 
in  the  atmosphere,  now;  but  this  idea  was  prema 
ture.  The  big  man  was  examining  the  note  search- 
ingly  under  the  gas-jet.  A  glance  showed  me  that 
he  had  it  upside  down — disheartening  evidence  that 
he  could  not  read. 

"Is  ut  his  own  hand-write?" 

"Yes — he  wrote  it  himself." 

"He  did,  did  he?" 

"Yes." 

1 '  H'm.    Well,  then,  why  Vd  he  write  it  like  that  ?" 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mane,  why  w'u'dn't  he  put  his  name  to  ut?" 

' '  His  name  is  to  it.  That's  not  it — you  are  looking 
at  my  name." 

I  thought  that  that  was  a  home  shot,  but  he  did 
not  betray  that  he  had  been  hit.  He  said: 

"It's  not  an  aisy  one  to  spell;  how  do  you  pro 
nounce  ut?" 

"Mark  Twain." 

"H'm.  H'm.  Mike  Train.  H'm.  I  don't  re 
member  ut.  What  is  it  ye  want  to  see  him  about?" 

"It  isn't  I  that  want  to  see  him,  he  wants  to  see 
me." 

93 


MARK     TWAIN 

"Oh,  he  does,  does  he?" 

"Yes." 

"What  does  he  want  to  see  ye  about?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Ye  don't  know!  And  ye  confess  it,  becod! 
Well,  I  can  tell  ye  wan  thing — ye'U  not  see  him. 
Are  ye  in  the  business?" 

"What  business?" 

"The  show  business." 

A  fatal  question.  I  recognized  that  I  was  defeated. 
If  I  answered  no,  he  would  cut  the  matter  short 
and  wave  me  to  the  door  without  the  grace  of  a 
word — I  saw  it  in  his  uncompromising  eye;  if  I 
said  I  was  a  lecturer,  he  would  despise  me,  and 
dismiss  me  with  opprobrious  words;  if  I  said  I  was 
a  dramatist,  he  would  throw  me  out  of  the  window. 
I  saw  that  my  case  was  hopeless,  so  I  chose  the 
course  which  seemed  least  humiliating:  I  would 
pocket  my  shame  and  glide  out  without  answering. 
The  silence  was  growing  lengthy. 

"I'll  ask  ye  again.  Are  ye  in  the  show  business 
yerself?" 

"Yes!" 

I  said  it  with  splendid  confidence;  for  in  that 
moment  the  very  twin  of  that  grand  New  Haven 
dog  loafed  into  the  room,  and  I  saw  that  Irishman's 
eye  light  eloquently  with  pride  and  affection. 

"Ye  are?    And  what  is  it?" 

"I've  got  a  bench-show  in  New  Haven." 

The  weather  did  change  then. 

"You  don't  say,  sir!  And  that's  your  show,  sir! 
Oh,  it's  a  grand  show,  it's  a  wonderful  show,  sir, 

94 


M  '  IN 

"Oh,  he  does,  doc 

"Yes." 

"Wr  Oxmt?" 

•    ye   confess   it,    her 
wiia  thing — yell  not  see  him. 


I  r«.  < ognized  that  I  was  defeated. 
;e  would  ct  matter  short 

e  of  a 

YOUR  HONOR  'LL  KNOW  THAT  p'6.1 
DIMENSIONS" 

iow. 

nswering. 
•  in  the  show  business 


The  wer 

u  don't  V  ow,  sir! 

I  grand  &h*w,  it's  a  wonderful  show,  sir, 
94 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

and  a  proud  man  I  am  to  see  your  honor  this  day. 
And  ye'll  be  an  expert,  sir,  and  ye'll  know  all  about 
dogs — more  than  ever  they  know  theirselves,  I'll 
take  me  oath  to*ut." 

I  said,  with  modesty: 

"I  believe  I  have  some  reputation  that  way.  In 
fact,  my  business  requires  it." 

"Ye  have  some  reputation,  your  honor!  Bedad 
I  believe  you!  There's  not  a  jintleman  in  the 
worrld  that  can  lay  over  ye  in  the  judgmint  of  a 
dog,  sir.  Now  I'll  vinture  that  your  honor  '11  know 
that  dog's  dimensions  there  better  than  he  knows 
them  his  own  self,  and  just  by  the  casting  of  your 
educated  eye  upon  him.  Would  you  mind  giving  a 
guess,  if  ye'll  be  so  good?" 

I  knew  that  upon  my  answer  would  depend  my 
fate.  If  I  made  this  dog  bigger  than  the  prize-dog, 
it  would  be  bad  diplomacy,  and  suspicious;  if  I  fell 
too  far  short  of  the  prize-dog,  that  would  be  equally 
damaging.  The  dog  was  standing  by  the  table,  and 
I  believed  I  knew  the  difference  between  him  and 
the  one  whose  picture  I  had  seen  in  the  newspaper 
to  a  shade.  I  spoke  promptly  up  and  said: 

"It's  no  trouble  to  guess  this  noble  creature's 
figures:  height,  three  feet;  length,  four  feet  and 
three-quarters  of  an  inch;  weight,  a  hundred  and 
forty-eight  and  a  quarter." 

The  man  snatched  his  hat  from  its  peg  and  danced 
on  it  with  joy,  shouting : 

"  Ye've  hardly  missed  it  the  hair's-breadth,  hardly 
the  shade  of  a  shade,  your  honor!  Oh,  it's  the 
miraculous  eye  ye've  got,  for  the  judgmint  of  a  dog!" 

95 


MARK    TWAIN 

And  still  pouring  out  his  admiration  of  my  capaci 
ties,  he  snatched  off  his  vest  and  scoured  off  one 
of  the  wooden  chairs  with  it,  and  scrubbed  it  and 
polished  it,  and  said : 

"  There,  sit  down,  your  honor,  I'm  ashamed  of 
meself  that  I  forgot  ye  were  standing  all  this  time; 
and  do  put  on  your  hat,  ye  mustn't  take  cold,  it's  a 
draughty  place ;  and  here  is  your  cigar,  sir,  a-getting 
cold,  I'll  give  ye  a  light.  There.  The  place  is  all 
yours,  sir,  and  if  ye '11  just  put  your  feet  on  the 
table  and  make  yourself  at  home,  I'll  stir  around 
and  get  a  candle  and  light  ye  up  the  ould  crazy 
stairs  and  see  that  ye  don't  come  to  anny  harm,  for 
be  this  time  Mr.  Daly  '11  be  that  impatient  to  see 
your  honor  that  he'll  be  taking  the  roof  off." 

He  conducted  me  cautiously  and  tenderly  up  the 
stairs,  lighting  the  way  and  protecting  me  with 
friendly  warnings,  then  pushed  the  door  open  and 
bowed  me  in  and  went  his  way,  mumbling  hearty 
things  about  my  wonderful  eye  for  points  of  a  dog. 
Mr.  Daly  was  writing  and  had  his  back  to  me.  He 
glanced  over  his  shoulder  presently,  then  jumped 
up  and  said: 

"Oh,  dear  me,  I  forgot  all  about  giving  instruc 
tions.  I  was  just  writing  you  to  beg  a  thousand 
pardons.  But  how  is  it  you  are  here?  How  did 
you  get  by  that  Irishman?  You  are  the  first  man 
that's  done  it  in  five  and  twenty  years.  You  didn't 
bribe  him,  I  know  that;  there's  not  money  enough 
in  New  York  to  do  it.  And  you  didn't  persuade 
him;  he  is  all  ice  and  iron:  there  isn't  a  soft  place 
nor  a  warm  one  in  him  anywhere.  What  is  your 

96 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

secret?  Look  here;  you  owe  me  a  hundred  dollars 
for  unintentionally  giving  you  a  chance  to  perform 
a  miracle — for  it  is  a  miracle  that  you've  done." 

4 'That  is  all  right,"  I  said,  "collect  it  of  Jimmy 
Lewis." 

That  good  dog  not  only  did  me  that  good  turn  in 
the  time  of  my  need,  but  he  won  for  me  the  envious 
reputation  among  all  the  theatrical  people  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  of  being  the  only  man  in 
history  who  had  ever  run  the  blockade  of  Augustin 
Daly's  back  door, 
ii.— 7 

97 


CHAPTER  X 

MURDERS  BY  WHOLESALE 

If  the  desire  to  kill  and  the  opportunity  to  kill  came  always  together,  who  would 
escape  hanging? — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ON  the  Train.  Fifty  years  ago,  when  I  was  a 
boy  in  the  then  remote  and  sparsely  peopled 
Mississippi  valley,  vague  tales  and  rumors  of  a 
mysterious  body  of  professional  murderers  came 
wandering  in  from  a  country  which  was  construc 
tively  as  far  from  us  as  the  constellations  blinking  in 
space — India;  vague  tales  and  rumors  of  a  sect 
called  Thugs,  who  waylaid  travelers  in  lonely  places 
and  killed  them  for  the  contentment  of  a  god  whom 
they  worshiped;  tales  which  everybody  liked  to 
listen  to  and  nobody  believed — except  with  reserva 
tions.  It  was  considered  that  the  stories  had  gath 
ered  bulk  on  their  travels.  The  matter  died  down 
and  a  lull  followed.  Then  Eugene  Sue's  Wandering 
Jew  appeared,  and  made  great  talk  for  a  while. 
One  character  in  it  was  a  chief  of  Thugs — Ferin- 
ghea — a  mysterious  and  terrible  Indian  who  was 
as  slippery  and  sly  as  a  serpent,  and  as  deadly;  and 
he  stirred  up  the  Thug  interest  once  more.  But  it 
did  not  last.  It  presently  died  again — this  time  to 
stay  dead. 

At  first  glance  it  seems  strange  that  this  should 
have  happened;  but  really  it  was  not  strange — on 
the  contrary,  it  was  natural;  I  mean  on  our  side  of 

98 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

the  water.  For  the  source  whence  the  Thug  tales 
mainly  came  was  a  Government  Report,  and  without 
doubt  was  not  republished  in  America;  it  was  prob 
ably  never  even  seen  there.  Government  Reports 
have  no  general  circulation.  They  are  distributed 
to  the  few,  and  are  not  always  read  by  those  few. 
I  heard  of  this  Report  for  the  first  time  a  day  or  two 
ago,  and  borrowed  it.  It  is  full  of  fascinations; 
and  it  turns  those  dim,  dark  fairy  tales  of  my  boy 
hood  days  into  realities. 

The  Report  was  made  in  1839  by  Major  Sleeman, 
of  the  Indian  Service,  and  was  printed  in  Calcutta  in 
1840.  It  is  a  clumsy,  great,  fat,  poor  sample  of 
the  printer's  art,  but  good  enough  for  a  government 
printing-office  in  that  old  day  and  in  that  remote 
region,  perhaps.  To  Major  Sleeman  was  given  the 
general  superintendence  of  the  giant  task  of  ridding 
India  of  Thuggee,  and  he  and  his  seventeen  assist 
ants  accomplished  it.  It  was  the  Augean  Stables 
over  again.  Captain  Vallancey,  writing  in  a  Madras 
journal  in  those  old  times,  makes  this  remark: 

The  day  that  sees  this  far-spread  evil  eradicated  from  India 
and  known  only  in  name,  will  greatly  tend  to  immortalize 
British  rule  in  the  East. 

He  did  not  overestimate  the  magnitude  and  diffi 
culty  of  the  work,  nor  the  immensity  of  the  credit 
which  would  justly  be  due  to  British  rule  in  case  it 
was  accomplished. 

Thuggee  became  known  to  the  British  authorities 
in  India  about  1810,  but  its  wide  prevalence  was  not 
suspected;  it  was  not  regarded  as  a  serious  matter, 
and  no  systematic  measures  were  taken  for  its  sup- 

99 


MARK     TWAIN 

pression  until  about  1830.  About  that  time  Major 
Sleeman  captured  Eugene  Sue's  Thug-chief,  Fer- 
inghea,  and  got  him  to  turn  King's  evidence.  The 
revelations  were  so  stupefying  that  Sleeman  was  not 
able  to  believe  them.  Sleeman  thought  he  knew 
every  criminal  within  his  jurisdiction,  and  that  the 
worst  of  them  were  merely  thieves;  but  Feringhea 
told  him  that  he  was  in  reality  living  in  the  midst  of 
a  swarm  of  professional  murderers;  that  they  had 
been  all  about  him  for  many  years,  and  that  they 
buried  their  dead  close  by.  These  seemed  insane 
tales;  but  Feringhea  said  come  and  see — and  he 
took  him  to  a  grave  and  dug  up  a  hundred  bodies, 
and  told  him  all  the  circumstances  of  the  killings, 
and  named  the  Thugs  who  had  done  the  work.  It 
was  a  staggering  business.  Sleeman  captured  some 
of  these  Thugs  and  proceeded  to  examine  them 
separately,  and  with  proper  precautions  against 
collusion;  for  he  would  not  believe  any  Indian's 
unsupported  word.  The  evidence  gathered  proved 
the  truth  of  what  Feringhea  had  said,  and  also 
revealed  the  fact  that  gangs  of  Thugs  were  plying 
their  trade  all  over  India.  The  astonished  govern 
ment  now  took  hold  of  Thuggee,  and  for  ten  years 
made  systematic  and  relentless  war  upon  it,  and 
finally  destroyed  it.  Gang  after  gang  was  captured, 
tried,  and  punished.  The  Thugs  were  harried  and 
hunted  from  one  end  of  India  to  the  other.  The 
government  got  all  their  secrets  out  of  them;  and 
also  got  the  names  of  the  members  of  the  bands,  and 
recorded  them  in  a  book,  together  with  their  birth 
places  and  places  of  residence. 

100 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

The  Thugs  were  worshipers  of  Bhowanee;  and  to 
this  god  they  sacrificed  anybody  that  came  handy; 
but  they  kept  the  dead  man's  things  themselves,  for 
the  god  cared  for  nothing  but  the  corpse.  Men 
were  initiated  into  the  sect  with  solemn  ceremonies. 
Then  they  were  taught  how  to  strangle  a  person  with 
the  sacred  choke-cloth,  but  were  not  allowed  to 
perform  officially  with  it  until  after  long  practice. 
No  half-educated  strangler  could  choke  a  man  to 
death  quickly  enough  to  keep  him  from  uttering  a 
sound — a  muffled  scream,  gurgle,  gasp,  moan,  or 
something  of  the  sort;  but  the  expert's  work  was 
instantaneous:  the  cloth  was  whipped  around  the 
victim's  neck,  there  was  a  sudden  twist,  and  the 
head  fell  silently  forward,  the  eyes  starting  from  the 
sockets;  and  all  was  over.  The  Thug  carefully 
guarded  against  resistance.  It  was  usual  to  get  the 
victims  to  sit  down,  for  that  was  the  handiest  position 
for  business. 

If  the  Thug  had  planned  India  itself  it  could  not 
have  been  more  conveniently  arranged  for  the  needs 
of  his  occupation.  There  were  no  public  convey 
ances.  There  were  no  conveyances  for  hire.  The 
traveler  went  on  foot  or  in  a  bullock-cart  or  on  a 
horse  which  he  bought  for  the  purpose.  As  soon 
as  he  was  out  of  his  own  little  state  or  principality 
he  was  among  strangers ;  nobody  knew  him,  nobody 
took  note  of  him,  and  from  that  time  his  movements 
could  no  longer  be  traced.  He  did  not  stop  in  towns 
or  villages,  but  camped  outside  of  them  and  sent 
his  servants  in  to  buy  provisions.  There  were  no 
habitations  between  villages.  Whenever  he  was  be- 

101 


MARK    TWAIN 

tween  villages  he  was  an  easy  prey,  particularly  as 
he  usually  traveled  by  night,  to  avoid  the  heat.  He 
was  always  being  overtaken  by  strangers  who  offered 
him  the  protection  of  their  company,  or  asked  for 
the  protection  of  his — and  these  strangers  were  often 
Thugs,  as  he  presently  found  out  to  his  cost.  The 
landholders,  the  native  police,  the  petty  princes, 
the  village  officials,  the  customs  officers  were  in 
many  cases  protectors  and  harborers  of  the  Thugs, 
and  betrayed  travelers  to  them  for  a  share  of  the 
spoil.  At  first  this  condition  of  things  made  it  next 
to  impossible  for  the  government  to  catch  the 
marauders ;  they  were  spirited  away  by  these  watch 
ful  friends.  All  through  a  vast  continent,  thus 
infested,  helpless  people  of  every  caste  and  kind 
moved  along  the  paths  and  trails  in  couples  and 
groups  silently  by  night,  carrying  the  commerce  of 
the  country — treasure,  jewels,  money,  and  petty 
batches  of  silks,  spices,  and  all  manner  of  wares.  It 
was  a  paradise  for  the  Thug. 

When  the  autumn  opened,  the  Thugs  began  to 
gather  together  by  pre-concert.  Other  people  had 
to  have  interpreters  at  every  turn,  but  not  the 
Thugs;  they  could  talk  together,  no  matter  how  far 
apart  they  were  born,  for  they  had  a  language  of 
their  own,  and  they  had  secret  signs  by  which  they 
knew  each  other  for  Thugs;  and  they  were  always 
friends.  Even  their  diversities  of  religion  and  caste 
were  sunk  in  devotion  to  their  calling,  and  the  Mos 
lem  and  the  high-caste  and  low-caste  Hindu  were 
stanch  and  affectionate  brothers  in  Thuggery. 

When  a  gang  had  been  assembled,  they  had  relig- 

102 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

ious  worship,  and  waited  for  an  omen.  They  had 
definite  notions  about  the  omens.  The  cries  of 
certain  animals  were  good  omens,  the  cries  of  certain 
other  creatures  were  bad  omens.  A  bad  omen  would 
stop  proceedings  and  send  the  men  home. 

The  sword  and  the  strangling-cloth  were  sacred 
emblems.  The  Thugs  worshiped  the  sword  at  home 
before  going  out  to  the  assembling-place;  the  stran 
gling-cloth  was  worshiped  at  the  place  of  assembly. 
The  chiefs  of  most  of  the  bands  performed  the 
religious  ceremonies  themselves ;  but  the  Kaets  dele 
gated  them  to  certain  official  stranglers  (Chaurs). 
The  rites  of  the  Kaets  were  so  holy  that  no  one  but 
the  Chaur  was  allowed  to  touch  the  vessels  and 
other  things  used  in  them. 

Thug  methods  exhibited  a  curious  mixture  of 
caution  and  the  absence  of  it ;  cold  business  calcula 
tion  and  sudden,  unreflecting  impulse;  but  there 
were  two  details  which  were  constant,  and  not  sub 
ject  to  caprice:  patient  persistence  in  following  up 
the  prey,  and  pitilessness  when  the  time  came  to  act. 

Caution  was  exhibited  in  the  strength  of  the  bands. 
They  never  felt  comfortable  and  confident  unless 
their  strength  exceeded  that  of  any  party  of  travelers 
they  were  likely  to  meet  by  four  or  five  fold.  Yet 
it  was  never  their  purpose  to  attack  openly,  but  only 
when  the  victims  were  off  their  guard.  When  they 
got  hold  of  a  party  of  travelers  they  often  moved 
along  in  their  company  several  days,  using  all  manner 
of  arts  to  win  their  friendship  and  get  their  confi 
dence.  At  last,  when  this  was  accomplished  to  their 
satisfaction,  the  real  business  began.  A  few  Thugs 

103 


MARK    TWAIN 

were  privately  detached  and  sent  forward  in  the 
dark  to  select  a  good  killing-place  and  dig  the  graves. 
When  the  rest  reached  the  spot  a  halt  was  called,  for 
a  rest  or  a  smoke.  The  travelers  were  invited  to 
sit.  By  signs,  the  chief  appointed  certain  Thugs  to 
sit  down  in  front  of  the  travelers  as  if  to  wait  upon 
them,  others  to  sit  down  beside  them  and  engage 
them  in  conversation,  and  certain  expert  stranglers 
to  stand  behind  the  travelers  and  be  ready  when  the 
signal  was  given.  The  signal  was  usually  some 
commonplace  remark,  like  "Bring  the  tobacco." 
Sometimes  a  considerable  wait  ensued  after  all  the 
actors  were  in  their  places — the  chief  was  biding  his 
time,  in  order  to  make  everything  sure.  Meantime, 
the  talk  droned  on,  dim  figures  moved  about  in  the 
dull  light,  peace  and  tranquillity  reigned,  the  trav 
elers  resigned  themselves  to  the  pleasant  reposeful- 
ness  and  comfort  of  the  situation,  unconscious  of  the 
death-angels  standing  motionless  at  their  backs.  The 
time  was  ripe,  now,  and  the  signal  came:  "Bring 
the  tobacco."  There  was  a  mute  swift  movement, 
all  in  the  same  instant  the  men  at  each  victim's  sides 
seized  his  hands,  the  man  in  front  seized  his  feet, 
and  pulled,  the  man  at  his  back  whipped  the  cloth 
ground  his  neck  and  gave  it  a  twist — the  head  sunk 
forward,  the  tragedy  was  over.  The  bodies  were 
stripped  and  covered  up  in  the  graves,  the  spoil 
packed  for  transportation,  then  the  Thugs  gave 
pious  thanks  to  Bhowanee,  and  departed  on  further 
holy  service. 

The  Report  shows  that  the  travelers  moved  in 
exceedingly  small  groups — twos,  threes,  fours,  as  a 

104 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

rule;  a  party  with  a  dozen  in  it  was  rare.  The 
Thugs  themselves  seem  to  have  been  the  only  people 
who  moved  in  force.  They  went  about  in  gangs  of 
10,  15,  25,  40,  60,  100,  150,  200,  250,  and  one  gang 
of  310  is  mentioned.  Considering  their  numbers, 
their  catch  was  not  extraordinary — particularly 
when  you  consider  that  they  were  not  in  the  least 
fastidious,  but  took  anybody  they  could  get,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  and  sometimes  even  killed  children. 
Now  and  then  they  killed  women,  but  it  was  con 
sidered  sinful  to  do  it,  and  unlucky.  The  "season" 
was  six  or  eight  months  long.  One  season  the 
half-dozen  Bundelkand  and  Gwalior  gangs  aggre 
gated  712  men,  and  they  murdered  210  people. 
One  season  the  Malwa  and  Kandeish  gangs  aggre 
gated  702  men,  and  they  murdered  232.  One  season 
the  Kandeish  and  Berar  gangs  aggregated  963  men, 
and  they  murdered  385  people. 

Here  is  the  tally-sheet  of  a  gang  of  sixty  Thugs 
for  a  whole  season — gang  under  two  noted  chiefs, 
"Chotee  and  Sheik  Nungoo  from  Gwalior": 

Left  Poora,  in  Jhansee,  and  on  arrival  at  Sarora  murdered  a 
traveler. 

On  nearly  reaching  Bhopal,  met  3  Brahmans,  and  murdered 
them. 

Cross  the  Nerbudda;  at  a  village  called  Hutteea,  murdered  a 
Hindu. 

Went  through  Aurungabad  to  Walagow;  there  met  a  Havildar 
of  the  barber  caste  and  5  sepoys  (native  soldiers) ;  in  the  evening 
came  to  Jokur,  and  in  the  morning  killed  them  near  the  place 
where  the  treasure-bearers  were  killed  the  year  before. 

Between  Jokur  and  Dholeea  met  a  sepoy  of  the  shepherd 
caste;  killed  him  in  the  jungle. 

Passed  through  Dholeea  and  lodged  in  a  village;  two  miles 

105 


MARK     TWAIN 

beyond,  on  the  road  to  Indore,  met  a  Byragee  (beggar — holy 
mendicant) ;  murdered  him  at  the  Thapa. 

In  the  morning,  beyond  the  Thapa,  fell  in  with  3  Marwarie 
travelers;  murdered  them. 

Near  a  village  on  the  banks  of  the  Taptee  met  4  travelers  and 
killed  them. 

Between  Choupra  and  Dhoreea  met  a  Marwarie;  murdered 
him. 

At  Dhoreea  met  3  Marwaries;  took  them  two  miles  and 
murdered  them. 

Two  miles  further  on,  overtaken  by  3  treasure-bearers;  took 
them  two  miles  and  murdered  them  in  the  jungle. 

Came  on  to  Khurgore  Bateesa  in  Indore,  divided  spoil,  and 
dispersed. 

A  total  of  27  men  murdered  on  one  expedition. 

Chotee  (to  save  his  neck)  was  informer,  and  fur 
nished  these  facts.  Several  things  are  noticeable 
about  his  resume,  i,  Business  brevity;  2,  absence 
of  emotion;  3,  smallness  of  the  parties  encountered 
by  the  sixty;  4,  variety  in  character  and  quality  of 
the  game  captured;  5,  Hindu  and  Mohammedan 
chiefs  in  business  together  for  Bhowanee;  6,  the 
sacred  caste  of  the  Brahmans  not  respected  by  either; 
7,  nor  yet  the  character  of  that  mendicant,  that 
Byragee. 

A  beggar  is  a  holy  creature,  and  some  of  the 
gangs  spared  him  on  that  account,  no  matter  how 
slack  business  might  be;  but  other  gangs  slaughtered 
not  only  him,  but  even  that  sacredest  of  sacred 
creatures,  the  fakir  —  that  repulsive  skin-and-bone 
thing  that  goes  around  naked  and  mats  his  bushy 
hair  with  dust  and  dirt,  and  so  beflours  his  lean  body 
with  ashes  that  he  looks  like  a  specter.  Sometimes 
a  fakir  trusted  a  shade  too  far  in  the  protection  of 

106 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

his  sacredness.  In  the  middle  of  a  tally-sheet  of 
Feringhea's,  who  had  been  out  with  forty  Thugs, 
I  find  a  case  of  the  kind.  After  the  killing  of  thirty- 
nine  men  and  one  woman,  the  fakir  appears  on 
the  scene: 

Approaching  Doregow,  met  3  pundits;  also  a  fakir,  mounted 
on  a  pony;  he  was  plastered  over  with  sugar  to  collect  flies, 
and  was  covered  with  them.  Drove  off  the  fakir,  and  killed 
the  other  three. 

Leaving  Doregow,  the  fakir  joined  again,  and  went  on  in 
company  to  Raojana;  met  6  Khutries  on  their  way  from  Bombay 
to  Nagpore.  Drove  off  the  fakir  with  stones,  and  killed  the 
6  men  in  camp,  and  buried  them  in  the  grove. 

Next  day  the  fakir  joined  again;  made  him  leave  at  Mana. 
Beyond  there  fell  in  with  2  Kahars  and  a  sepoy,  and  came  on 
toward  the  place  selected  for  the  murder.  When  near  it,  the 
fakir  came  again.  Losing  all  patience  with  him,  gave  Mithoo, 
one  of  the  gang,  5  rupees  ($2.50)  to  murder  him,  and  take  the 
sin  upon  himself.  All  four  were  strangled,  including  the  fakir. 
Surprised  to  find  among  the  fakir's  effects  30  pounds  of  coral, 
350  strings  of  small  pearls,  15  strings  of  large  pearls,  and  a  gilt 
necklace. 

It  is  curious,  the  little  effect  that  time  has  upon  a 
really  interesting  circumstance.  This  one,  so  old, 
so  long  ago  gone  down  into  oblivion,  reads  with  the 
same  freshness  and  charm  that  attach  to  the  news  in 
the  morning  paper;  one's  spirits  go  up,  then  down, 
then  up  again,  following  the  chances  which  the 
fakir  is  running;  now  you  hope,  now  you  despair, 
now  you  hope  again;  and  at  last  everything  comes 
out  right,  and  you  feel  a  great  wave  of  personal 
satisfaction  go  weltering  through  you,  and,  without 
thinking,  you  put  out  your  hand  to  pat  Mithoo  on 
the  back,  when — puff !  the  whole  thing  has  vanished 

107 


MARK    TWAIN 

away,  there  is  nothing  there;  Mithoo  and  all  the 
crowd  have  been  dust  and  ashes  and  forgotten,  oh, 
so  many,  many,  many  lagging  years !  And  then  comes 
a  sense  of  injury:  you  don't  know  whether  Mithoo 
got  the  swag,  along  with  the  sin,  or  had  to  divide 
up  the  swag  and  keep  all  the  sin  himself.  There  is 
no  literary  art  about  a  government  report.  It  stops 
a  story  right  in  the  most  interesting  place. 

These  reports  of  Thug  expeditions  run  along 
interminably  in  one  monotonous  tune:  "Met  a 
sepoy — killed  him;  met  five  pundits — killed  them; 
met  four  Rajputs  and  a  woman  —  killed  them" — 
and  so  on,  till  the  statistics  get  to  be  pretty  dry.  But 
this  small  trip  of  Feringhea's  Forty  had  some  little 
variety  about  it.  Once  they  came  across  a  man 
hiding  in  a  grave — a  thief;  he  had  stolen  eleven  hun 
dred  rupees  from  Dhunroj  Seith  of  Parowtee.  They 
strangled  him  and  took  the  money.  They  had  no 
patience  with  thieves.  They  killed  two  treasure- 
bearers,  and  got  four  thousand  rupees.  They  came 
across  two  bullocks  "laden  with  copper  pice,*'  and 
killed  the  four  drivers  and  took  the  money.  There 
must  have  been  half  a  ton  of  it.  I  think  it  takes  a 
double  handful  of  pice  to  make  an  anna,  and  sixteen 
annas  to  make  a  rupee;  and  even  in  those  days  the 
rupee  was  worth  only  half  a  dollar.  Coming  back 
over  their  tracks  from  Baroda,  they  had  another 
picturesque  stroke  of  luck:  "The  Lohars  of  Oodey- 
pore"  put  a  traveler  in  their  charge  "for  safety." 
Dear,  dear,  across  this  abysmal  gulf  of  time  we  still 
see  Feringhea's  lips  uncover  his  teeth,  and  through 
the  dim  haze  we  catch  the  incandescent  glimmer  of 

108 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

his  smile.  He  accepted  that  trust,  good  man;  and 
so  we  know  what  went  with  the  traveler. 

Even  Rajas  had  no  terrors  for  Feringhea;  he 
came  across  an  elephant-driver  belonging  to  the 
Raja  of  Oodeypore  and  promptly  strangled  him. 

"A  total  of  one  hundred  men  and  five  women 
murdered  on  this  expedition." 

Among  the  reports  of  expeditions  we  find  mention 
of  victims  of  almost  every  quality  and  estate: 


Native  soldiers 

Fakirs 

Mendicants 

Holy-water  carriers 

Carpenters 

Peddlers 

Tailors 

Blacksmiths 

Policemen  (native) 

Pastry  cooks 

Grooms 

Mecca  pilgrims 


Chuprassies 
Treasure-bearers 
Children 
Cowherds 
Gardeners 
Shopkeepers 
Palanquin-bearers 
Farmers 
Bullock-drivers 
Male  servants  seek 
ing  work 


Women  servants  seek 
ing  work 
Shepherds 
Archers 
Table-waiters 
Weavers 
Priests 
Bankers 
Boatmen 
Merchants 
Grass-cutters 


Also  a  prince's  cook;  and  even  the  water-carrier 
of  that  sublime  lord  of  lords  and  king  of  kings,  the 
Governor-General  of  India!  How  broad  they  were 
in  their  tastes!  They  also  murdered  actors — poor 
wandering  barn-stormers.  There  are  two  instances 
recorded;  the  first  one  by  a  gang  of  Thugs  under  a 
chief  who  soils  a  great  name  borne  by  a  better  man — 
Kipling's  deathless  Gungadin: 

After  murdering  four  sepoys,  going  on  toward  Indore,  met  four 
strolling  players,  and  persuaded  them  to  come  with  us,  on  the 
pretense  that  we  would  see  their  performance  at  the  next  stage. 
Murdered  them  at  a  temple  near  Bhopal. 

109 


MARK     TWAIN 
Second  instance : 

At  Deohuttee,  joined  by  comedians.  Murdered  them  east 
ward  of  that  place. 

But  this  gang  was  a  particularly  bad  crew.  On 
that  expedition  they  murdered  a  fakir  and  twelve 
beggars.  And  yet  Bhowanee  protected  them;  for 
once  when  they  were  strangling  a  man  in  a  wood 
when  a  crowd  was  going  by  close  at  hand  and  the 
noose  slipped  and  the  man  screamed,  Bhowanee 
made  a  camel  burst  out  at  the  same  moment  with  a 
roar  that  drowned  the  scream;  and  before  the  man 
could  repeat  it  the  breath  was  choked  out  of  his  body. 

The  cow  is  so  sacred  in  India  that  to  kill  her 
keeper  is  an  awful  sacrilege,  and  even  the  Thugs 
recognized  this;  yet  now  and  then  the  lust  for  blood 
was  too  strong,  and  so  they  did  kill  a  few  cow- 
keepers.  In  one  of  these  instances  the  witness  who 
killed  the  cowherd  said,  "In  Thuggee  this  is  strictly 
forbidden,  and  is  an  act  from  which  no  good  can 
come.  I  was  ill  of  a  fever  for  ten  days  afterward. 
I  do  believe  that  evil  will  follow  the  murder  of  a 
man  with  a  cow.  If  there  be  no  cow  it  does  not 
signify."  Another  Thug  said  he  held  the  cowherd's 
feet  while  this  witness  did  the  strangling.  He  felt 
no  concern,  "because  the  bad  fortune  of  such  a 
deed  is  upon  the  strangler  and  not  upon  the  assist 
ants;  even  if  there  should  be  a  hundred  of  them." 

There  were  thousands  of  Thugs  roving  over  India 
constantly,  during  many  generations.  They  made 
Thuggee  a  hereditary  vocation  and  taught  it  to  their 
sons  and  to  their  sons'  sons.  Boys  were  in  full 

no 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

membership  as  early  as  sixteen  years  of  age;  vet 
erans  were  still  at  work  at  seventy.  What  was  the 
fascination,  what  was  the  impulse?  Apparently,  it 
was  partly  piety,  largely  gain,  and  there  is  reason 
to  suspect  that  the  sport  afforded  was  the  chiefest 
fascination  of  all.  Meadows  Taylor  makes  a  Thug 
in  one  of  his  books  claim  that  the  pleasure  of  killing 
men  was  the  white  man's  beast-hunting  instinct  en 
larged,  refined,  ennobled.  I  will  quote  the  passage: 


in 


CHAPTER  XI 


HUNTING  MEN  FOR  MERE   SPORT 

Simple  rules  for  saving  money:  To  save  half,  when  you  are  fired  by  an  eager 
Impulse  to  contribute  to  a  charity,  wait,  and  count  forty.  To  save  three-quarters, 
count  sixty.  To  save  it  all,  count  sixty -five. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 


T 


HE  Thug  said: 


How  many  of  you  English  are  passionately  devoted  to 
sporting!  Your  days  and  months  are  passed  in  its  excitement. 
A  tiger,  a  panther,  a  buffalo,  or  a  hog  rouses  your  utmost  energies 
for  its  destruction — you  even  risk  your  lives  in  its  pursuit. 
How  much  higher  game  is  a  Thug's! 

That  must  really  be  the  secret  of  the  rise  and 
development  of  Thuggee.  The  joy  of  killing !  the  joy 
of  seeing  killing  done — these  are  traits  of  the  human 
race  at  large.  We  white  people  are  merely  modified 
Thugs;  Thugs  fretting  under  the  restraints  of  a  not 
very  thick  skin  of  civilization;  Thugs  who  long  ago 
enjoyed  the  slaughter  of  the  Roman  arena,  and  later 
the  burning  of  doubtful  Christians  by  authentic 
Christians  in  the  public  squares,  and  who  now,  with 
the  Thugs  of  Spain  and  Nimes,  flock  to  enjoy  the 
blood  and  misery  of  the  bull-ring.  We  have  no 
tourists  of  either  sex  or  any  religion  who  are  able  to 
resist  the  delights  of  the  bull-ring  when  opportunity 
offers;  and  we  are  gentle  Thugs  in  the  hunting  sea 
son,  and  love  to  chase  a  tame  rabbit  and  kill  it. 
Still,  we  have  made  some  progress — microscopic,  and 
in  truth  scarcely  worth  mentioning,  and  certainly 

112 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

nothing  to  be  proud  of — still,  it  is  progress:  we  no 
longer  take  pleasure  in  slaughtering  or  burning  help 
less  men.  We  have  reached  a  little  altitude  where 
we  may  look  down  upon  the  Indian  Thugs  with  a 
complacent  shudder;  and  we  may  even  hope  for  a 
day,  many  centuries  hence,  when  our  posterity  will 
look  down  upon  us  in  the  same  way. 

There  are  many  indications  that  the  Thug  often 
hunted  men  for  the  mere  sport  of  it ;  that  the  fright 
and  pain  of  the  quarry  were  no  more  to  him  than  are 
the  fright  and  pain  of  the  rabbit  or  the  stag  to  us; 
and  that  he  was  no  more  ashamed  of  beguiling  his 
game  with  deceits  and  abusing  its  trust  than  are  we 
when  we  have  imitated  a  wild  animal's  call  and  shot 
it  when  it  honored  us  with  its  confidence  and  came 
to  see  what  we  wanted: 

Madara,  son  of  Nihal,  and  I,  Ramzam,  set  out  from  Kotdee 
in  the  cold  weather,  and  followed  the  high  road  for  about  twenty 
days  in  search  of  travelers  until  we  came  to  Selempore,  where 
we  met  a  very  old  man  going  to  the  east.  We  won  his  confidence 
in  this  manner:  He  carried  a  load  which  was  too  heavy  for  his 
old  age;  I  said  to  him:  "You  are  an  old  man,  I  will  aid  you 
in  carrying  your  load,  as  you  are  from  my  part  of  the  country." 
He  said:  "Very  well,  take  me  with  you."  So  we  took  him  with 
us  to  Selempore,  where  we  slept  that  night.  We  woke  him 
next  morning  before  dawn  and  set  out,  and  at  the  distance  of 
three  miles  we  seated  him  to  rest  while  it  was  still  very  dark. 
Madara  was  ready  behind  him,  and  strangled  him.  He  never 
spoke  a  word.  He  was  about  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  age. 

Another  gang  fell  in  with  a  couple  of  barbers  and 
persuaded  them  to  come  along  in  their  company  by 
promising  them  the  job  of  shaving  the  whole  crew — 
thirty  Thugs.  At  the  place  appointed  for  the  murder 
fifteen  got  shaved,  and  actually  paid  the  barbers  for 
ii.— 8  113 


MARK     TWAIN 

their  work.     Then  killed  them  and  took  back  the 
money. 

A  gang  of  forty-two  Thugs  came  across  two 
Brahmans  and  a  shopkeeper  on  the  road,  beguiled 
them  into  a  grove  and  got  up  a  concert  for  their 
entertainment.  While  these  poor  fellows  were  listen 
ing  to  the  music  the  stranglers  were  standing  behind 
them ;  and  at  the  proper  moment  for  dramatic  effect 
they  applied  the  noose. 

The  most  devoted  fisherman  must  have  a  bite  at 
least  as  often  as  once  a  week  or  his  passion  will  cool 
and  he  will  put  up  his  tackle.  The  tiger-sportsman 
must  find  a  tiger  at  least  once  a  fortnight  or  he  will 
get  tired  and  quit.  The  elephant-hunter's  enthusi 
asm  will  waste  away  little  by  little,  and  his  zeal  will 
perish  at  last  if  he  plod  around  a  month  without 
finding  a  member  of  that  noble  family  to  assassinate. 

But  when  the  lust  in  the  hunter's  heart  is  for  the 
noblest  of  all  quarries,  man,  how  different  is  the 
case!  and  how  watery  and  poor  is  the  zeal  and  how 
childish  the  endurance  of  those  other  hunters  by 
comparison.  Then,  neither  hunger,  nor  thirst,  nor 
fatigue,  nor  deferred  hope,  nor  monotonous  disap 
pointment,  nor  leaden-footed  lapse  of  time  can  con 
quer  the  hunter's  patience  or  weaken  the  joy  of  his 
quest  or  cool  the  splendid  rage  of  his  desire.  Of 
all  the  hunting-passions  that  burn  in  the  breast  of 
man,  there  is  none  that  can  lift  him  superior  to  dis 
couragements  like  these  but  the  one — the  royal 
sport,  the  supreme  sport,  whose  quarry  is  his  brother. 
By  comparison,  tiger-hunting  is  a  colorless  poor 
thing,  for  all  it  has  been  so  bragged  about. 

114 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Why,  the  Thug  was  content  to  tramp  patiently 
along,  afoot,  in  the  wasting  heat  of  India,  week 
after  week,  at  an  average  of  nine  or  ten  miles  a  day, 
if  he  might  but  hope  to  find  game  some  time  or 
other  and  refresh  his  longing  soul  with  blood.  Here 
is  an  instance : 

I  (Ramzam)  and  Hyder  set  out,  for  the  purpose  of  strangling 
travelers,  from  Guddapore,  and  proceeded  via  the  Fort  of 
Julalabad,  Newulgunge,  Bangermow,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges 
(upward  of  one  hundred  miles),  from  whence  we  returned  by 
another  route.  Still  no  travelers!  till  we  reached  Bowaneegunge, 
where  we  fell  in  with  a  traveler,  a  boatman;  we  inveigled  him, 
and  about  two  miles  east  of  there  Hyder  strangled  him  as  he 
stood — for  he  was  troubled  and  afraid  and  would  not  sit.  We 
then  made  a  long  journey  (about  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles) 
and  reached  Hussunpore  Bundwa,  where  at  the  tank  we  fell  in  with 
a  traveler — he  slept  there  that  night;  next  morning  we  followed 
him  and  tried  to  win  his  confidence;  at  the  distance  of  two  miles 
we  endeavored  to  induce  him  to  sit  down — but  he  would  not, 
having  become  aware  of  us.  I  attempted  to  strangle  him  as  he 
walked  along,  but  did  not  succeed;  both  of  us  then  fell  upon 
him.  He  made  a  great  outcry,  "They  are  murdering  me!" 
At  length  we  strangled  him  and  flung  his  body  into  a  well. 
After  this  we  returned  to  our  homes,  having  been  out  a  month 
and  traveled  about  two  hundred  and  sixty  miles.  A  total  of 
two  men  murdered  on  the  expedition. 

And  here  is  another  case — related  by  the  terrible 
Futty  Khan,  a  man  with  a  tremendous  record,  to 
be  rementioned  by  and  by : 

I,  with  three  others,  traveled  for  about  forty-five  days  a 
distance  of  about  two  hundred  miles  in  search  of  victims  along 
the  highway  to  Bundwa  and  returned  by  Davodpore  (another 
two  hundred  miles),  during  which  journey  we  had  only  one  mur 
der,  which  happened  in  this  manner.  Four  miles  to  the  east  of 
Noubustaghat  we  fell  in  with  a  traveler,  an  old  man.  I,  with 
Koshal  and  Hyder,  inveigled  him  and  accompanied  him  that 


MARK    TWAIN 

day  within  three  miles  of  Rampoor,  where,  after  dark,  in  a  lonely 
place,  we  got  him  to  sit  down  and  rest;  and  while  I  kept  him  in 
talk,  seated  before  him,  Hyder  behind  strangled  him:  he  made 
no  resistance.  Koshal  stabbed  him  under  the  arms  and  in  the 
throat,  and  we  flung  the  body  into  a  running  stream.  We  got 
about  four  or  five  rupees  each  ($2  or  $2.50).  We  then  proceeded 
homeward.  A  total  of  one  man  murdered  on  this  expedition. 

There.  They  tramped  four  hundred  miles,  were 
gone  about  three  months,  and  harvested  two  dollars 
and  a  half  apiece.  But  the  mere  pleasure  of  the 
hunt  was  sufficient.  That  was  pay  enough.  They 
did  no  grumbling. 

Every  now  and  then  in  this  big  book  one  comes 
across  that  pathetic  remark:  "We  tried  to  get  him 
to  sit  down  but  he  would  not."  It  tells  the  whole 
story.  Some  accident  had  awakened  the  suspicion 
in  him  that  these  smooth  friends  who  had  been 
petting  and  coddling  him  and  making  him  feel  so 
safe  and  so  fortunate  after  his  forlorn  and  lonely 
wanderings  were  the  dreaded  Thugs;  and  now  their 
ghastly  invitation  to  "sit  and  rest"  had  confirmed 
its  truth.  He  knew  there  was  no  help  for  him,  and 
that  he  was  looking  his  last  upon  earthly  things,  but 
"he  would  not  sit."  No,  not  that — it  was  too  awful 
to  think  of! 

There  are  a  number  of  instances  which  indicate 
that  when  a  man  had  once  tasted  the  regal  joys  of 
man-hunting  he  could  not  be  content  with  the  dull 
monotony  of  a  crimeless  life  afterward.  Example, 
from  a  Thug's  testimony: 

We  passed  through  to  Kurnaul,  where  we  found  a  former  Thug 
named  Junooa,  an  old  comrade  of  ours,  who  had  turned  religious 

116 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

mendicant  and  become  a  disciple  and  holy.    He  came  to  us  in 
the  serai  and  weeping  with  joy  returned  to  his  old  trade. 

Neither  wealth  nor  honors  nor  dignities  could 
satisfy  a  reformed  Thug  for  long.  He  would  throw 
them  all  away,  some  day,  and  go  back  to  the  lurid 
pleasures  of  hunting  men,  and  being  hunted  himself 
by  the  British. 

Ramzam  was  taken  into  a  great  native  grandee's 
service  and  given  authority  over  five  villages.  "My 
authority  extended  over  these  people  to  summons 
them  to  my  presence,  to  make  them  stand  or  sit.  I 
dressed  well,  rode  my  pony,  and  had  two  sepoys,  a 
scribe  and  a  village  guard  to  attend  me.  During 
three  years  I  used  to  pay  each  village  a  monthly 
visit,  and  no  one  suspected  that 'I  was  a  Thug!  The 
chief  man  used  to  wait  on  me  to  transact  business, 
and,  as  I  passed  along,  old  and  young  made  their 
salaam  to  me." 

And  yet  during  that  very  three  years  he  got  leave 
of  absence  "to  attend  a  wedding,"  and  instead  went 
off  on  a  Thugging  lark  with  six  other  Thugs  and 
hunted  the  highway  for  fifteen  days! — with  satis 
factory  results. 

Afterward  he  held  a  great  office  under  a  Raja. 
There  he  had  ten  miles  of  country  under  his  com 
mand  and  a  military  guard  of  fifteen  men,  with 
authority  to  call  out  two  thousand  more  upon  occa 
sion.  But  the  British  got  on  his  track,  and  they 
crowded  him  so  that  he  had  to  give  himself  up. 
See  what  a  figure  he  was  when  he  was  gotten  up  for 
style  and  had  all  his  things  on:  "I  was  fully  armed — 
a  sword,  shield,  pistols,  a  matchlock  musket  and  a 

117 


MARK     TWAIN 

flint  gun,  for  I  was  fond  of  being  thus  arrayed,  and 
when  so  armed  feared  not  though  forty  men  stood 
before  me." 

He  gave  himself  up  and  proudly  proclaimed  him 
self  a  Thug.  Then  by  request  he  agreed  to  betray 
his  friend  and  pal,  Buhram,  a  Thug  with  the  most 
tremendous  record  in  India.  "I  went  to  the  house 
where  Buhram  slept  (often  has  he  led  our  gangs!). 
I  woke  him,  he  knew  me  well,  and  came  outside  to 
me.  It  was  a  cold  night,  so,  under  pretense  of 
warming  myself,  but  in  reality  to  have  light  for  his 
seizure  by  the  guards,  I  lighted  some  straw  and 
made  a  blaze.  We  were  warming  our  hands.  The 
guards  drew  around  us.  I  said  to  them,  'This  is 
Buhram/  and  he  was  seized  just  as  a  cat  seizes  a 
mouse.  Then  Buhram  said,  '  I  am  a  Thug !  my  father 
was  a  Thug,  my  grandfather  was  a  Thug,  and  I  have 
thugged  with  many!"1 

So  spoke  the  mighty  hunter,  the  mightiest  of  the 
mighty,  the  Gordon  Gumming  of  his  day.  Not 
much  regret  noticeable  in  it.1 

1  "Having  planted  a  bullet  in  the  shoulder-bone  of  an  elephant, 
and  caused  the  agonized  creature  to  lean  for  support  against  a  tree,  I 
proceeded  to  brew  some  coffee.  Having  refreshed  myself,  taking 
observations  of  the  elephant's  spasms  and  writhings  between  the 
sips,  I  resolved  to  make  experiments  on  vulnerable  points,  and, 
approaching  very  near,  I  fired  several  bullets  at  different  parts  of 
his  enormous  skull.  He  only  acknowledged  the  shots  by  a  salaam- 
like  movement  of  his  trunk,  with  the  point  of  which  he  gently 
touched  the  wounds  with  a  striking  and  peculiar  action.  Surprised 
and  shocked  to  find  that  I  was  only  prolonging  the  suffering  of  the 
noble  beast,  which  bore  its  trials  with  such  dignified  composure,  I 
resolved  to  finish  the  proceeding  with  all  possible  despatch,  and 
accordingly  opened  fire  upon  him  from  the  left  side.  Aiming  at  the 
shoulder,  I  fired  six  shots  with  the  two-grooved  rifle,  which  must 

118 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

So  many,  many  times  this  Official  Report  leaves 
one's  curiosity  unsatisfied.  For  instance,  here  is  a 
little  paragraph  out  of  the  record  of  a  certain  band 
of  one  hundred  and  ninety-three  Thugs,  which  has 
that  defect: 

Fell  in  with  Lall  Sing  Subahdar  and  his  family,  consisting  of 
nine  persons.  Traveled  with  them  two  days,  and  the  third  put 
them  all  to  death  except  the  two  children,  little  boys  of  one  and 
a  half  years  old. 

There  it  stops.  What  did  they  do  with  those  poor 
little  fellows?  What  was  their  subsequent  history? 
Did  they  purpose  training  them  up  as  Thugs?  How 
could  they  take  care  of  such  little  creatures  on  a 
march  which  stretched  over  several  months  ?  No  one 
seems  to  have  cared  to  ask  any  questions  about  the 
babies.  But  I  do  wish  I  knew. 

One  would  be  apt  to  imagine  that  the  Thugs  were 
utterly  callous,  utterly  destitute  of  human  feelings, 
heartless  toward  their  own  families  as  well  as  toward 
other  people's;  but  this  was  not  so.  Like  all  other 
Indians,  they  had  a  passionate  love  for  their  kin.  A 
shrewd  British  officer  who  knew  the  Indian  character, 
took  that  characteristic  into  account  in  laying  his 
plans  for  the  capture  of  Eugene  Sue's  famous  Fer- 
inghea.  He  found  out  Feringhea's  hiding-place,  and 
sent  a  guard  by  night  to  seize  him,  but  the  squad 
was  awkward  and  he  got  away.  However,  they  got 

have  eventually  proved  mortal,  after  which  I  fired  six  shots  at  the 
same  part  with  the  Dutch  six-pounder.  Large  tears  now  trickled 
down  from  his  eyes,  which  he  slowly  shut  and  opened,  his  colossal 
frame  shivered  convulsively,  and  falling  on  his  side  he  expired." — 
Gordon  Cumming. 

119 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  rest  of  the  family — the  mother,  wife,  child,  and 
brother — and  brought  them  to  the  officer,  at  Jub- 
bulpore;  the  officer  did  not  fret,  but  bided  his  time: 
"I  knew  Feringhea  would  not  go  far  while  links  so 
dear  to  him  were  in  my  hands."  He  was  right. 
Feringhea  knew  all  the  danger  he  was  running  by 
staying  in  the  neighborhood,  still  he  could  not  tear 
himself  away.  The  officer  found  that  he  divided  his 
time  between  five  villages  where  he  had  relatives  and 
friends  who  could  get  news  for  him  from  his  family 
in  Jubbulpore  jail ;  and  that  he  never  slept  two  con 
secutive  nights  in  the  same  village.  The  officer 
traced  out  his  several  haunts,  then  pounced  upon  all 
the  five  villages  on  the  one  night  and  at  the  same 
hour,  and  got  his  man. 

Another  example  of  tamily  affection.  A  little 
while  previously  to  the  capture  of  Feringhea's  family, 
the  British  officer  had  captured  Feringhea's  foster- 
brother,  leader  of  a  gang  of  ten,  and  had  tried  the 
eleven  and  condemned  them  to  be  hanged.  Ferin 
ghea's  captured  family  arrived  at  the  jail  the  day 
before  the  execution  was  to  take  place.  The  foster- 
brother,  Jhurhoo,  entreated  to  be  allowed  to  see  the 
aged  mother  and  the  others.  The  prayer  was 
granted,  and  this  is  what  took  place — it  is  the 
British  officer  who  speaks : 

In  the  morning,  just  before  going  to  the  scaffold,  the  interview 
took  place  before  me.  He  fell  at  the  old  woman's  feet  and  begged 
that  she  would  relieve  him  from  the  obligations  of  the  milk  with 
which  she  had  nourished  him  from  infancy,  as  he  was  about 
to  die  before  he  could  fulfil  any  of  them.  She  placed  her  hands 
on  his  head,  and  he  knelt,  and  she  said  she  forgave  him  all, 
and  bid  him  die  like  a  man. 

120 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

If  a  capable  artist  should  make  a  picture  of  it,  it 
would  be  full  of  dignity  and  solemnity  and  pathos; 
and  it  could  touch  you.  You  would  imagine  it  to 
be  anything  but  what  it  was.  There  is  reverence 
there,  and  tenderness,  and  gratefulness,  and  compas 
sion,  and  resignation,  and  fortitude,  and  self-respect 
— and  no  sense  of  disgrace,  no  thought  of  dishonor. 
Everything  is  there  that  goes  to  make  a  noble  part 
ing,  and  give  it  a  moving  grace  and  beauty  and 
dignity.  And  yet  one  of  these  people  is  a  Thug  and 
the  other  a  mother  of  Thugs !  The  incongruities 
of  our  human  nature  seem  to  reach  their  limit 
here. 

I  wish  to  make  note  of  one  curious  thing  while  I 
think  of  it.  One  of  the  very  commonest  remarks  to 
be  found  in  this  bewildering  array  of  Thug  confes 
sions  is  this : 

"Strangled  him  and  threw  him  in  a  well!"  In 
one  case  they  threw  sixteen  into  a  well — and  they 
had  thrown  others  in  the  same  well  before.  It  makes 
a  body  thirsty  to  read  about  it. 

And  there  is  another  very  curious  thing.  The 
bands  of  Thugs  had  private  graveyards.  They  did 
not  like  to  kill  and  bury  at  random,  here  and  there 
and  everywhere.  They  preferred  to  wait,  and  toll 
the  victims  along,  and  get  to  one  of  their  regular 
burying-places  (bheels)  if  they  could.  In  the  little 
kingdom  of  Oude,  which  was  about  half  as  big  as 
Ireland  and  about  as  big  as  the  state  of  Maine,  they 
had  two  hundred  and  seventy-four  bheels.  They  were 
scattered  along  fourteen  hundred  miles  of  road,  at  an 
average  of  only  five  miles  apart,  and  the  British  Gov- 

121 


MARK    TWAIN 

eminent  traced  out  and  located  each  and  every  one 
of  them  and  set  them  down  on  the  map. 

The  Oude  bands  seldom  went  out  of  their  own 
country,  but  they  did  a  thriving  business  within  its 
borders.  So  did  outside  bands  who  came  in  and 
helped.  Some  of  the  Thug  leaders  of  Oude  were 
noted  for  their  successful  careers.  Each  of  four  of 
them  confessed  to  above  300  murders;  another  to 
nearly  400;  our  friend  Ramzam  to  604 — he  is  the 
one  who  got  leave  of  absence  to  attend  a  wedding 
and  went  thugging  instead;  and  he  is  also  the  one 
who  betrayed  Buhram  to  the  British. 

But  the  biggest  records  of  all  were  the  murder-lists 
of  Futty  Khan  and  Buhram.  Futty  Khan's  number 
is  smaller  than  Ramzam's,  but  he  is  placed  at  the 
head  because  his  average  is  the  best  in  Oude-Thug 
history  per  year  of  service.  His  slaughter  was  five 
hundred  and  eight  men  in  twenty  years,  and  he  was 
still  a  young  man  when  the  British  stopped  his 
industry.  Buhram 's  list  was  nine  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  murders,  but  it  took  him  forty  years.  His 
average  was  one  man  and  nearly  all  of  another  man 
per  month  for  forty  years,  but  Futty  Khan's  average 
was  two  men  and  a  little  of  another  man  per  month 
during  his  twenty  years  of  usefulness. 

There  is  one  very  striking  thing  which  I  wish  to 
call  attention  to.  You  have  surmised  from  the  listed 
callings  followed  by  the  victims  of  the  Thugs  that 
nobody  could  travel  the  Indian  roads  unprotected 
and  live  to  get  through;  that  the  Thugs  respected 
no  quality,  no  vocation,  no  religion,  nobody;  that 
they  killed  every  unarmed  man  that  came  in  their 

122 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

way.  That  is  wholly  true — with  one  reservation. 
In  all  the  long  file  of  Thug  confessions  an  English 
traveler  is  mentioned  but  once — and  this  is  what  the 
Thug  says  of  the  circumstance: 

He  was  on  his  way  from  Mhow  to  Bombay.  We  studiously 
avoided  him.  He  proceeded  next  morning  with  a  number  of 
travelers  who  had  sought  his  protection,  and  they  took  the  road 
to  Baroda. 

We  do  not  know  who  he  was;  he  flits  across  the 
page  of  this  rusty  old  book  and  disappears  in  the 
obscurity  beyond;  but  he  is  an  impressive  figure, 
moving  through  that  valley  of  death  serene  and  un 
afraid,  clothed  in  the  might  of  the  English  name. 

We  have  now  followed  the  big  official  book  through, 
and  we  understand  what  Thuggee  was,  what  a 
bloody  terror  it  was,  what  a  desolating  scourge  it 
was.  In  1830  the  English  found  this  cancerous  or 
ganization  embedded  in  the  vitals  of  the  empire, 
doing  its  devastating  work  in  secrecy,  and  assisted, 
protected,  sheltered,  and  hidden  by  innumerable 
confederates — big  and  little  native  chiefs,  customs 
officers,  village  officials,  and  native  police,  all  ready 
to  lie  for  it,  and  the  mass  of  the  people,  through  fear, 
persistently  pretending  to  know  nothing  about  its 
doings;  and  this  condition  of  things  had  existed  for 
generations,  and  was  formidable  with  the  sanctions 
of  age  and  old  custom.  If  ever  there  was  an  un 
promising  task,  if  ever  there  was  a  hopeless  task  in 
the  world,  surely  it  was  offered  here — the  task  of 
conquering  Thuggee.  But  that  little  handful  of 
English  officials  in  India  set  their  sturdy  and  confi- 

123 


MARK     TWAIN 

dent  grip  upon  it,  and  ripped  it  out,  root  and  branch! 
How  modest  do  Captain  Vallancey's  words  sound 
now,  when  we  read  them  again,  knowing  what  we 
know: 

The  day  that  sees  this  far-spread  evil  completely  eradicated 
from  India,  and  known  only  in  name,  will  greatly  tend  to 
immortalize  British  rule  in  the  East. 

It  would  be  hard  to  word  a  claim  more  modestly 
than  that  for  this  most  noble  work. 


124 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   WIDOW  WHO  BURNED   GLADLY 

Grief  can  take  care  of  itself;  but  to  get  the  full  value  of  a  joy  you  must  have 
somebody  to  divide  it  with. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  left  Bombay  for  Allahabad  by  a  night  train. 
It  is  the  custom  of  the  country  to  avoid  day 
travel  when  it  can  conveniently  be  done.  But  there 
is  one  trouble :  while  you  can  seemingly  " secure*'  the 
two  lower  berths  by  making  early  application,  there 
is  no  ticket  as  witness  of  it,  and  no  other  producible 
evidence  in  case  your  proprietorship  shall  chance  to 
be  challenged.  The  word  "engaged"  appears  on 
the  window,  but  it  doesn't  state  who  the  compart 
ment  is  engaged  for.  If  your  Satan  and  your  Barney 
arrive  before  somebody  else's  servants,  and  spread 
the  bedding  on  the  two  sofas  and  then  stand  guard 
till  you  come,  all  will  be  well;  but  if  they  step  aside 
on  an  errand,  they  may  find  the  beds  promoted  to 
the  two  shelves,  and  somebody  else's  demons  stand 
ing  guard  over  their  master's  beds,  which  in  the 
mean  time  have  been  spread  upon  your  sofas. 

You  do  not  pay  anything  extra  for  your  sleeping- 
place;  that  is  where  the  trouble  lies.  If  you  buy  a 
fare-ticket  and  fail  to  use  it,  there  is  room  thus 
made  available  for  some  one  else;  but  if  the  place 
were  secured  to  you  it  would  remain  vacant,  and  yet 
your  ticket  would  secure  you  another  place  when  you 
were  presently  ready  for  travel. 

125 


MARK    TWAIN 

However,  no  explanation  of  such  a  system  can 
make  it  seem  quite  rational  to  a  person  who  has  been 
used  to  a  more  rational  system.  If  our  people  had 
the  arranging  of  it,  we  should  charge  extra  for 
securing  the  place,  and  then  the  road  would  suffer  no 
loss  if  the  purchaser  did  not  occupy  it. 

The  present  system  encourages  good  manners — 
and  also  discourages  them.  If  a  young  girl  has  a 
lower  berth  and  an  elderly  lady  comes  in,  it  is  usual 
for  the  girl  to  offer  her  place  to  this  late  comer ;  and 
it  is  usual  for  the  late  comer  to  thank  her  courteously 
and  take  it.  But  the  thing  happens  differently  some 
times.  When  we  were  ready  to  leave  Bombay  my 
daughter's  satchels  were  holding  possession  of  her 
berth — a  lower  one.  At  the  last  moment,  a  middle- 
aged  American  lady  swarmed  into  the  compartment, 
followed  by  native  porters  laden  with  her  baggage. 
She  was  growling  and  snarling  and  scolding,  and 
trying  to  make  herself  phenomenally  disagreeable; 
and  succeeding.  Without  a  word,  she  hoisted  the 
satchels  into  the  hanging  shelf,  and  took  possession 
of  that  lower  berth. 

On  one  of  our  trips  Mr.  Smythe  and  I  got  out  at 
a  station  to  walk  up  and  down,  and  when  we  came 
back  Smythe's  bed  was  in  the  hanging  shelf  and  an 
English  cavalry  officer  was  in  bed  on  the  sofa  which 
he  had  lately  been  occupying.  It  was  mean  to  be 
glad  about  it,  but  it  is  the  way  we  are  made;  I 
could  not  have  been  gladder  if  it  had  been  my  enemy 
that  had  suffered  this  misfortune.  We  all  like  to  see 
people  in  trouble,  if  it  doesn't  cost  us  anything.  I 
was  so  happy  over  Mr.  Smythe's  chagrin  that  I 

126 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

couldn't  go  to  sleep  for  thinking  of  it  and  enjoying  it. 
I  knew  he  supposed  the  officer  had  committed  the 
robbery  himself,  whereas  without  a  doubt  the 
officer's  servant  had  done  it  without  his  knowledge. 
Mr.  Smythe  kept  this  incident  warm  in  his  heart, 
and  longed  for  a  chance  to  get  even  with  somebody 
for  it.  Sometime  afterward  the  opportunity  came, 
in  Calcutta.  We  were  leaving  on  a  twenty-four-hour 
journey  to  Darjeeling.  Mr.  Barclay,  the  general 
superintendent,  had  made  special  provision  for  our 
accommodation,  Mr.  Smythe  said;  so  there  was  no 
need  to  hurry  about  getting  to  the  train;  conse 
quently,  we  were  a  little  late.  When  we  arrived,  the 
usual  immense  turmoil  and  confusion  of  a  great 
Indian  station  were  in  full  blast.  It  was  an  immod 
erately  long  train,  for  all  the  natives  of  India  were 
going  by  it  somewhither,  and  the  native  officials 
were  being  pestered  to  frenzy  by  belated  and  anxious 
people.  They  didn't  know  where  our  car  was,  and 
couldn't  remember  having  received  any  orders  about 
it.  It  was  a  deep  disappointment;  moreover,  it 
looked  as  if  our  half  of  our  party  would  be  left 
behind  altogether.  Then  Satan  came  running  and 
said  he  had  found  a  compartment  with  one  shelf  and 
one  sofa  unoccupied,  and  had  made  our  beds  and 
had  stowed  our  baggage.  We  rushed  to  the  place, 
and  just  as  the  train  was  ready  to  pull  out  and  the 
porters  were  slamming  the  doors  to,  all  down  the 
line,  an  officer  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  a  good 
friend  of  ours,  put  his  head  in  and  said : 

"I  have  been  hunting  for  you  everywhere.    What 
are  you  doing  here?    Don't  you  know — " 

127 


MARK     TWAIN 

The  train  started  before  he  could  finish.  Mr. 
Smythe's  opportunity  was  come.  His  bedding,  on 
the  shelf,  at  once  changed  places  with  the  bedding 
—a  stranger's — that  was  occupying  the  sofa  that 
was  opposite  to  mine.  About  ten  o'clock  we  stopped 
somewhere,  and  a  large  Englishman  of  official  mili 
tary  bearing  stepped  in.  We  pretended  to  be  asleep. 
The  lamps  were  covered,  but  there  was  light  enough 
for  us  to  note  his  look  of  surprise.  He  stood  there, 
grand  and  fine,  peering  down  at  Smythe,  and  won 
dering  in  silence  at  the  situation.  After  a  bit  he  said : 

"Well!"    And  that  was  all. 

But  that  was  enough.  It  was  easy  to  understand. 
It  meant:  "This  is  extraordinary.  This  is  high 
handed.  I  haven't  had  an  experience  like  this  before. ' ' 

He  sat  down  on  his  baggage,  and  for  twenty 
minutes  we  watched  him  through  our  eyelashes,  rock 
ing  and  swaying  there  to  the  motion  of  the  train. 
Then  we  came  to  a  station,  and  he  got  up  and  went 
out,  muttering:  "I  must  find  a  lower  berth,  or  wait 
over."  His  servant  came  presently  and  carried 
away  his  things. 

Mr.  Smythe's  sore  place  was  healed,  his  hunger 
for  revenge  was  satisfied.  But  he  couldn't  sleep, 
and  neither  could  I;  for  this  was  a  venerable  old 
car,  and  nothing  about  it  was  taut.  The  closet  door 
slammed  all  night,  and  defied  every  fastening  we 
could  invent.  We  got  up  very  much  jaded,  at 
dawn,  and  stepped  out  at  a  way-station;  and,  while 
we  were  taking  a  cup  of  coffee,  that  Englishman 
ranged  up  alongside,  and  somebody  said  to  him: 

"So  you  didn't  stop  off,  after  all?" 

128 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

"No.  The  guard  found  a  place  for  me  that  had 
been  engaged  and  not  occupied.  I  had  a  whole 
saloon  car  all  to  myself — oh,  quite  palatial!  I 
never  had  such  luck  in  my  life." 

That  was  our  car,  you  see.  We  moved  into  it, 
straight  off,  the  family  and  all.  But  I  asked  the 
English  gentleman  to  remain,  and  he  did.  A  pleasant 
man,  an  infantry  colonel;  and  doesn't  know,  yet, 
that  Smythe  robbed  him  of  his  berth,  but  thinks 
it  was  done  by  Smythe's  servant  without  Smythe's 
knowledge.  He  was  assisted  in  gathering  this  im 
pression. 

The  Indian  trains  are  manned  by  natives  exclu 
sively.  The  Indian  stations — except  very  large  and 
important  ones — are  manned  entirely  by  natives, 
and  so  are  the  posts  and  telegraphs.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  police  are  natives.  All  these  people  are 
pleasant  and  accommodating.  One  day  I  left  an 
express  -  train  to  lounge  about  in  that  perennially 
ravishing  show,  the  ebb  and  flow  and  whirl  of  gaudy 
natives,  that  is  always  surging  up  and  down  the 
spacious  platform  of  a  great  Indian  station;  and  I 
lost  myself  in  the  ecstasy  of  it,  and  when  I  turned, 
the  train  was  moving  swiftly  away.  I  was  going  to 
sit  down  and  wait  for  another  train,  as  I  would  have 
done  at  home;  I  had  no  thought  of  any  other  course. 
But  a  native  official,  who  had  a  green  flag  in  his  hand, 
saw  me,  and  said  politely : 

" Don't  you  belong  in  the  train,  sir?'* 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

He  waved  his  flag,  and  the  train  came  back! 
And  he  put  me  aboard  with  as  much  ceremony  as  if 
n.— 9  129 


MARK     TWAIN 

I  had  been  the  General  Superintendent.  They  are 
kindly  people,  the  natives.  The  face  and  the  bear 
ing  that  indicate  a  surly  spirit  and  a  bad  heart 
seemed  to  me  to  be  so  rare  among  Indians — so 
nearly  non-existent,  in  fact — that  I  sometimes  won 
dered  if  Thuggee  wasn't  a  dream,  and  not  a  reality. 
The  bad  hearts  are  there,  but  I  believe  that  they  are 
in  a  small,  poor  minority.  One  thing  is  sure:  They 
are  much  the  most  interesting  people  in  the  world — 
and  the  nearest  to  being  incomprehensible.  At  any 
rate,  the  hardest  to  account  for.  Their  character 
and  their  history,  their  customs  and  their  religion, 
confront  you  with  riddles  at  every  turn — riddles 
which  are  a  trifle  more  perplexing  after  they  are 
explained  than  they  were  before.  You  can  get  the 
facts  of  a  custom — like  caste,  and  Suttee,  and 
Thuggee,  and  so  on — and  with  the  facts  a  theory 
which  tries  to  explain,  but  never  quite  does  it  to 
your  satisfaction.  You  can  never  quite  understand 
how  so  strange  a  thing  could  have  been  born,  nor 
why. 

For  instance — the  Suttee.  This  is  the  explana 
tion  of  it:  A  woman  who  throws  away  her  life  when 
her  husband  dies  is  instantly  joined  to  him  again, 
and  is  forever  afterward  happy  with  him  in  heaven; 
her  family  will  build  a  little  monument  to  her,  or  a 
temple,  and  will  hold  her  in  honor,  and,  indeed, 
worship  her  memory  always;  they  will  themselves 
be  held  in  honor  by  the  public;  the  woman's  self- 
sacrifice  has  conferred  a  noble  and  lasting  distinction 
upon  her  posterity.  And,  besides,  see  what  she  has 
escaped:  If  she  had  elected  to  live,  she  would  be  a 

130 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

disgraced  person ;  she  could  not  remarry ;  her  family 
would  despise  her  and  disown  her;  she  would  be  a 
friendless  outcast,  and  miserable  all  her  days. 

Very  well,  you  say,  but  the  explanation  is  not 
complete  yet.  How  did  people  come  to  drift  into 
such  a  strange  custom?  What  was  the  origin  of  the 
idea?  "Well,  nobody  knows;  it  was  probably  a 
revelation  sent  down  by  the  gods."  One  more  thing: 
Why  was  such  a  cruel  death  chosen — why  wouldn't 
a  gentle  one  have  answered?  "Nobody  knows; 
maybe  that  was  a  revelation,  too." 

No — you  can  never  understand  it.  It  all  seems 
impossible.  You  resolve  to  believe  that  a  widow 
never  burnt  herself  willingly,  but  went  to  her  death 
because  she  was  afraid  to  defy  public  opinion.  But 
you  are  not  able  to  keep  that  position.  History 
drives  you  from  it.  Major  Sleeman  has  a  convincing 
case  in  one  of  his  books.  In  his  government  on  the 
Nerbudda  he  made  a  brave  attempt  on  the  28th 
of  March,  1828,  to  put  down  Suttee  on  his  own 
hook  and  without  warrant  from  the  Supreme  Gov 
ernment  of  India.  He  could  not  foresee  that  the 
government  would  put  it  down  itself  eight  months 
later.  The  only  backing  he  had  was  a  bold  nature 
and  a  compassionate  heart.  He  issued  his  proclama 
tion  abolishing  the  Suttee  in  his  district.  On  the 
morning  of  Tuesday — note  the  day  of  the  week — the 
24th  of  the  following  November,  Ummed  Singh 
Upadhya,  head  of  the  most  respectable  and  most 
extensive  Brahman  family  in  the  district,  died,  and 
presently  came  a  deputation  of  his  sons  and  grand 
sons  to  beg  that  his  old  widow  might  be  allowed  to 


MARK     TWAIN 

burn  herself  upon  his  pyre.  Sleeman  threatened  to 
enforce  his  order,  and  punish  severely  any  man  who 
assisted;  and  he  placed  a  police  guard  to  see  that 
no  one  did  so.  From  the  early  morning  the  old 
widow  of  sixty-five  had  been  sitting  on  the  bank  of 
the  sacred  river  by  her  dead,  waiting  through  the 
long  hours  for  the  permission ;  and  at  last  the  refusal 
came  instead.  In  one  little  sentence  Sleeman  gives 
you  a  pathetic  picture  of  this  lonely  old  gray  figure: 
all  day  and  all  night  "she  remained  sitting  by  the 
edge  of  the  water  without  eating  or  drinking."  The 
next  morning  the  body  of  the  husband  was  burned 
to  ashes  in  a  pit  eight  feet  square  and  three  or  four 
feet  deep,  in  the  view  of  several  thousand  spectators. 
Then  the  widow  waded  out  to  a  bare  rock  in  the 
river,  and  everybody  went  away  but  her  sons  and 
other  relations.  All  day  she  sat  there  on  her  rock  in 
the  blazing  sun  without  food  or  drink,  and  with  no 
clothing  but  a  sheet  over  her  shoulders. 

The  relatives  remained  with  her,  and  all  tried  to 
persuade  her  to  desist  from  her  purpose,  for  they 
deeply  loved  her.  She  steadily  refused.  Then  a 
part  of  the  family  went  to  Sleeman 's  house,  ten 
miles  away,  and  tried  again  to  get  him  to  let  her 
burn  herself.  He  refused,  hoping  to  save  her  yet. 

All  that  day  she  scorched  in  her  sheet  on  the  rock, 
and  all  that  night  she  kept  her  vigil  there  in  the 
bitter  cold.  Thursday  morning,  in  the  sight  of  her 
relatives,  she  went  through  a  ceremonial  which  said 
more  to  them  than  any  words  could  have  done; 
she  put  on  the  dhaja  (a  coarse  red  turban)  and 
broke  her  bracelets  in  pieces.  By  these  acts  she 

132 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

became  a  dead  person  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and 
excluded  from  her  caste  forever.  By  the  iron  rule 
of  ancient  custom,  if  she  should  now  choose  to  live 
she  could  never  return  to  her  family.  Sleeman  was 
in  deep  trouble.  If  she  starved  herself  to  death  her 
family  would  be  disgraced;  and,  moreover,  starving 
would  be  a  more  lingering  misery  than  the  death  by 
fire.  He  went  back  in  the  evening  thoroughly 
worried.  The  old  woman  remained  on  her  rock, 
and  there  in  the  morning  he  found  her  with  her  dhaja 
still  on  her  head.  "She  talked  very  collectedly, 
telling  me  that  she  had  determined  to  mix  her  ashes 
with  those  of  her  departed  husband,  and  should 
patiently  wait  my  permission  to  do  so,  assured  that 
God  would  enable  her  to  sustain  life  till  that  was 
given,  though  she  dared  not  eat  or  drink.  Looking 
at  the  sun,  then  rising  before  her  over  a  long  and 
beautiful  reach  of  the  river,  she  said  calmly,  'My 
soul  has  been  for  five  days  with  my  husband's  near 
that  sun;  nothing  but  my  earthly  frame  is  left; 
and  this,  I  know,  you  will  in  time  suffer  to  be  mixed 
with  his  ashes  in  yonder  pit,  because  it  is  not  in 
your  nature  or  usage  wantonly  to  prolong  the 
miseries  of  a  poor  old  woman." 

He  assured  her  that  it  was  his  desire  and  duty  to 
save  her,  and  to  urge  her  to  live,  and  to  keep  her 
family  from  the  disgrace  of  being  thought  her  mur 
derers.  But  she  said  she  was  not  afraid  of  their 
being  thought  so;  that  they  had  all,  like  good  chil 
dren,  done  everything  in  their  power  to  induce  her 
to  live,  and  to  abide  with  them;  "and  if  I  should 
consent  I  know  they  would  love  and  honor  me,  but 


MARK    TWAIN 

my  duties  to  them  have  now  ended.  I  commit  them 
all  to  your  care,  and  I  go  to  attend  my  husband, 
Ummed  Singh  Upadhya,  with  whose  ashes  on  the 
funeral  pile  mine  have  been  already  three  times 
mixed." 

She  believed  that  she  and  he  had  been  upon  the 
earth  three  several  times  as  wife  and  husband,  and 
that  she  had  burned  herself  to  death  three  times 
upon  his  pyre.  That  is  why  she  said  that  strange 
thing.  Since  she  had  broken  her  bracelets  and  put 
on  the  red  turban  she  regarded  herself  as  a  corpse; 
otherwise  she  would  not  have  allowed  herself  to  do 
her  husband  the  irreverence  of  pronouncing  his 
name.  "This  was  the  first  time  in  her  long  life  that 
she  had  ever  uttered  her  husband's  name,  for  in 
India  no  woman,  high  or  low,  ever  pronounces  the 
name  of  her  husband." 

Major  Sleeman  still  tried  to  shake  her  purpose. 
He  promised  to  build  her  a  fine  house  among  the 
temples  of  her  ancestors  upon  the  bank  of  the  river 
and  make  handsome  provision  for  her  out  of  rent- 
free  lands  if  she  would  consent  to  live;  and  if  she 
wouldn't  he  would  allow  no  stone  or  brick  to  ever 
mark  the  place  where  she  died.  But  she  only  smiled 
and  said,  "My  pulse  has  long  ceased  to  beat,  my 
spirit  has  departed;  I  shall  suffer  nothing  in  the 
burning;  and  if  you  wish  proof,  order  some  fire  and 
you  shall  see  this  arm  consumed  without  giving  me 
any  pain." 

Sleeman  was  now  satisfied  that  he  could  not  alter 
her  purpose.  He  sent  for  all  the  chief  members  of 
the  family  and  said  he  would  suffer  her  to  burn  her- 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

self  if  they  would  enter  into  a  written  engagement  to 
abandon  the  Suttee  in  their  family  thenceforth. 
They  agreed;  the  papers  were  drawn  out  and 
signed,  and  at  noon,  Saturday,  word  was  sent  to  the 
poor  old  woman.  She  seemed  greatly  pleased.  The 
ceremonies  of  bathing  were  gone  through  with,  and 
by  three  o'clock  she  was  ready  and  the  fire  was 
briskly  burning  in  the  pit.  She  had  now  gone  with 
out  food  or  drink  during  more  than  four  days  and  a 
half.  She  came  ashore  from  her  rock,  first  wetting 
her  sheet  in  the  waters  of  the  sacred  river,  for  with 
out  that  safeguard  any  shadow  which  might  fall 
upon  her  would  convey  impurity  to  her;  then  she 
walked  to  the  pit,  leaning  upon  one  of  her  sons  and 
a  nephew — the  distance  was  a  hundred  and  fifty 
yards. 

I  had  sentries  placed  all  around,  and  no  other  person  was 
allowed  to  approach  within  five  paces.  She  came  on  with  a 
calm  and  cheerful  countenance,  stopped  once,  and,  casting  her 
eyes  upward,  said:  "Why  have  they  kept  me  five  days  from 
thee,  my  husband?"  On  coming  to  the  sentries  her  supporters 
stopped  and  remained  standing;  she  moved  on,  and  walked 
once  around  the  pit,  paused  a  moment,  and,  while  muttering 
a  prayer,  threw  some  flowers  into  the  fire.  She  then  walked 
up  deliberately  and  steadily  to  the  brink,  stepped  into  the 
center  of  the  flame,  sat  down,  and,  leaning  back  in  the  midst 
as  if  reposing  upon  a  couch,  was  consumed  without  uttering  a 
shriek  or  betraying  one  sign  of  agony. 

It  is  fine  and  beautiful.  It  comepls  one's  rever 
ence  and  respect — no,  has  it  freely,  and  without 
compulsion.  We  see  how  the  custom,  once  started, 
could  continue,  for  the  soul  of  it  is  that  stupendous 
power,  Faith;  faith  brought  to  the  pitch  of  effective- 


MARK    TWAIN 

ness  by  the  cumulative  force  of  example  and  long 
use  and  custom;  but  we  cannot  understand  how  the 
first  widows  came  to  take  to  it.  That  is  a  perplexing 
detail. 

Sleeman  says  that  it  was  usual  to  play  music  at  the 
Suttee,  but  that  the  white  man's  notion  that  this 
was  to  drown  the  screams  of  the  martyr  is  not  cor 
rect;  that  it  had  a  quite  different  purpose.  It  was 
believed  that  the  martyr  died  prophesying;  that  the 
prophecies  sometimes  foretold  disaster,  and  it  was 
considered  a  kindness  to  those  upon  whom  it  was  to 
fall  to  drown  the  voice  and  keep  them  in  ignorance 
of  the  misfortune  that  was  to  come. 


136 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ALLAHABAD  AND  THE  HOLY  FAIR 

He  had  had  much  experience  of  physicians,  and  said  "the  only  way  to  keep 
your  health  is  to  eat  what  you  don't  want,  drink  what  you  don't  like,  and  do  what 
you'd  druther  not." — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

IT  was  a  long  journey — two  nights,  one  day,  and 
part  of  another  day,  from  Bombay  eastward  to 
Allahabad;  but  it  was  always  interesting,  and  it  was 
not  fatiguing.  At  first  the  night  travel  promised  to 
be  fatiguing,  but  that  was  on  account  of  pajamas. 
This  foolish  nightdress  consists  of  jacket  and  drawers. 
Sometimes  they  are  made  of  silk,  sometimes  of  a 
raspy,  scratchy,  slazy  woolen  material  with  a  sand 
paper  surface.  The  drawers  are  loose  elephant-legged 
and  elephant-waisted  things,  and  instead  of  button 
ing  around  the  body  there  is  a  draw-string  to  produce 
the  required  shrinkage.  The  jacket  is  roomy,  and 
one  buttons  it  in  front.  Pajamas  are  hot  on  a  hot 
night  and  cold  on  a  cold  night — defects  which  a 
nightshirt  is  free  from.  I  tried  the  pajamas  in  order 
to  be  in  the  fashion;  but  I  was  obliged  to  give  them 
up,  I  couldn't  stand  them.  There  was  no  sufficient 
change  from  day  gear  to  night  gear.  I  missed  the 
refreshing  and  luxurious  sense,  induced  by  the 
nightgown,  of  being  undressed,  emancipated,  set 
free  from  restraints  and  trammels.  In  place  of  that, 
I  had  the  worried,  confined,  oppressed,  suffocated 


MARK     TWAIN 

sense  of  being  abed  with  my  clothes  on.  All  through 
the  warm  half  of  the  night  the  coarse  surfaces  irri 
tated  my  skin  and  made  it  feel  baked  and  feverish, 
and  the  dreams  which  came  in  the  fitful  flurries  of 
slumber  were  such  as  distress  the  sleep  of  the  damned, 
or  ought  to;  and  all  through  the  cold  other  half  of 
the  night  I  could  get  no  time  for  sleep  because  I 
had  to  employ  it  all  in  stealing  blankets.  But 
blankets  are  of  no  value  at  such  a  time;  the  higher 
they  are  piled  the  more  effectively  they  cork  the 
cold  in  and  keep  it  from  getting  out.  The  result  is 
that  your  legs  are  ice,  and  you  know  how  you  will 
feel  by  and  by  when  you  are  buried.  In  a  sane 
interval  I  discarded  the  pajamas,  and  led  a  rational 
and  comfortable  life  thenceforth. 

Out  in  the  country  in  India,  the  day  begins  early. 
One  sees  a  plain,  perfectly  flat,  dust-colored  and 
brick-yardy,  stretching  limitlessly  away  on  every  side 
in  the  dim  gray  light,  striped  everywhere  with  hard- 
beaten  narrow  paths,  the  vast  flatness  broken  at 
wide  intervals  by  bunches  of  spectral  trees  that  mark 
where  villages  are;  and  along  all  the  paths  are 
slender  women  and  the  black  forms  of  lanky  naked 
men  moving  to  their  work,  the  women  with  brass 
water-jars  on  their  heads,  the  men  carrying  hoes. 
The  man  is  not  entirely  naked;  always  there  is  a  bit 
of  white  rag,  a  loin-cloth;  it  amounts  to  a  bandage, 
and  is  a  white  accent  on  his  black  person,  like  the 
silver  band  around  the  middle  of  a  pipe-stem. 
Sometimes  he  also  wears  a  fluffy  and  voluminous 
white  turban,  and  this  adds  a  second  accent.  He 
then  answers  properly  to  Miss  Gordon  Cumming's 

138 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

flashlight  picture  of  him — as  a  person  who  is  dressed 
in  "a  turban  and  a  pocket  handkerchief." 

All  day  long  one  has  this  monotony  of  dust- 
colored  dead  levels  and  scattering  bunches  of  trees 
and  mud  villages.  You  soon  realize  that  India  is 
not  beautiful;  still  there  is  an  enchantment  about  it 
that  is  beguiling,  and  which  does  not  pall.  You 
cannot  tell  just  what  it  is  that  makes  the  spell,  per 
haps,  but  you  feel  it  and  confess  it,  nevertheless. 
Of  course,  at  bottom,  you  know  in  a  vague  way  that 
it  is  history;  it  is  that  that  affects  you,  a  haunting 
sense  of  the  myriads  of  human  lives  that  have  blos 
somed,  and  withered,  and  perished  here,  repeating 
and  repeating  and  repeating,  century  after  century, 
and  age  after  age,  the  barren  and  meaningless  proc 
ess;  it  is  this  sense  that  gives  to  this  forlorn,  uncomely 
land  power  to  speak  to  the  spirit  and  make  friends 
with  it ;  to  speak  to  it  with  a  voice  bitter  w  th  satire, 
but  eloquent  with  melancholy.  The  deserts  of 
Australia  and  the  ice-barrens  of  Greenland  have  no 
speech,  for  they  have  no  venerable  history;  with 
nothing  to  tell  of  man  and  his  vanities,  his  fleeting 
glories  and  his  miseries,  they  have  nothing  wherewith 
to  spiritualize  their  ugliness  and  veil  it  with  a  charm. 

There  is  nothing  pretty  about  an  Indian  village — 
a  mud  one — and  I  do  not  remember  that  we  saw 
any  but  mud  ones  on  that  long  flight  to  Allahabad. 
It  is  a  little  bunch  of  dirt-colored  mud  hovels  jammed 
together  within  a  mud  wall.  As  a  rule,  the  rains  had 
beaten  down  parts  of  some  of  the  houses,  and  this 
gave  the  village  the  aspect  of  a  moldering  and 
hoary  ruin.  I  believe  the  cattle  and  the  vermin  live 

i39 


MARK    TWAIN 

inside  the  wall;  for  I  saw  cattle  coming  out  and 
cattle  going  in;  and  whenever  I  saw  a  villager  he 
was  scratching.  This  last  is  only  circumstantial 
evidence,  but  I  think  it  has  value.  The  village  has 
a  battered  little  temple  or  two,  big  enough  to  hold 
an  idol,  and  with  custom  enough  to  fat  up  a  priest 
and  keep  him  comfortable.  Where  there  are  Moham 
medans  there  are  generally  a  few  sorry  tombs  out 
side  the  village  that  have  a  decayed  and  neglected 
look.  The  villages  interested  me  because  of  things 
which  Major  Sleeman  says  about  them  in  his  books — 
particularly  what  he  says  about  the  division  of  labor 
in  them.  He  says  that  the  whole  face  of  India  is 
parceled  out  into  estates  of  villages;  that  nine- 
tenths  of  the  vast  population  of  the  land  consist  of 
cultivators  of  the  soil;  that  it  is  these  cultivators 
who  inhabit  the  villages;  that  there  are  certain 
"established  "  village  servants — mechanics  and  others 
who  are  apparently  paid  a  wage  by  the  village  at 
large,  and  whose  callings  remain  in  certain  families 
and  are  handed  down  from  father  to  son,  like  an 
estate.  He  gives  a  list  of  these  established  servants : 
Priest,  blacksmith,  carpenter,  accountant,  washer 
man,  basket-maker,  potter,  watchman,  barber,  shoe 
maker,  brazier,  confectioner,  weaver,  dyer,  etc.  In 
his  day  witches  abounded,  and  it  was  not  thought 
good  business  wisdom  for  a  man  to  marry  his 
daughter  into  a  family  that  hadn't  a  witch  in  it, 
for  she  would  need  a  witch  on  the  premises  to  protect 
her  children  from  the  evil  spells  which  would  cer 
tainly  be  cast  upon  them  by  the  witches  connected 
with  the  neighboring  families. 

140 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

The  office  of  midwife  was  hereditary  in  the  family 
of  the  basket-maker.  It  belonged  to  his  wife.  She 
might  not  be  competent,  but  the  office  was  hers, 
anyway.  Her  pay  was  not  high — twenty-five  cents 
for  a  boy,  and  half  as  much  for  a  girl.  The  girl  was 
not  desired,  because  she  would  be  a  disastrous  ex 
pense  by  and  by.  As  soon  as  she  should  be  old 
enough  to  begin  to  wear  clothes  for  propriety's  sake, 
it  would  be  a  disgrace  to  the  family  if  she  were  not 
married;  and  to  marry  her  meant  financial  ruin; 
for  by  custom  the  father  must  spend  upon  feasting 
and  wedding-display  everything  he  had  and  all  he 
could  borrow — in  fact,  reduce  himself  to  a  condition 
of  poverty  which  he  might  nevermore  recover  from. 

It  was  the  dread  of  this  prospective  ruin  which 
made  the  killing  of  girl  babies  so  prevalent  in  India 
in  the  old  days  before  England  laid  the  iron  hand  of 
her  prohibitions  upon  the  piteous  slaughter.  One 
may  judge  of  how  prevalent  the  custom  was,  by  one 
of  Sleeman's  casual  electrical  remarks,  when  he 
speaks  of  children  at  play  in  villages  —  where  girl 
voices  were  never  heard! 

The  wedding-display  folly  is  still  in  full  force  in 
India,  and  by  consequence  the  destruction  of  girl 
babies  is  still  furtively  practised;  but  not  largely, 
because  of  the  vigilance  of  the  government  and  the 
sternness  of  the  penalties  it  levies. 

In  some  parts  of  India  the  village  keeps  in  its  pay 
three  other  servants :  an  astrologer  to  tell  the  villager 
when  he  may  plant  his  crop,  or  make  a  journey,  or 
marry  a  wife,  or  strangle  a  child,  or  borrow  a  dog, 
or  climb  a  tree,  or  catch  a  rat,  or  swindle  a  neighbor, 

141 


MARK    TWAIN 

without  offending  the  alert  and  solicitous  heavens; 
and  what  his  dream  means,  if  he  has  had  one  and 
was  not  bright  enough  to  interpret  it  himself  by  the 
details  of  his  dinner;  the  two  other  established  ser 
vants  were  the  tiger  -  persuader  and  the  hail-storm- 
discourager.  The  one  kept  away  the  tigers  if  he 
could,  and  collected  the  wages  anyway,  and  the 
other  kept  off  the  hail-storms,  or  explained  why  he 
failed.  He  charged  the  same  for  explaining  a  failure 
that  he  did  for  scoring  a  success.  A  man  is  an  idiot 
who  can't  earn  a  living  in  India. 

Major  Sleeman  reveals  the  fact  that  the  trade- 
union  and  the  boycott  are  ant  quities  in  India. 
India  seems  to  have  originated  everything.  The 
"sweeper"  belongs  to  the  bottom  caste;  he  is  the 
lowest  of  the  low — all  other  castes  despise  him  and 
scorn  his  office.  But  that  does  not  trouble  him. 
His  caste  is  a  caste,  and  that  is  sufficient  for  him, 
and  so  he  is  proud  of  it,  not  ashamed.  Sleeman 
says: 

It  is  perhaps  not  known  to  many  of  my  countrymen,  even  in 
India,  that  in  every  town  and  city  in  the  country  the  right  of 
sweeping  the  houses  and  streets  is  a  monopoly,  and  is  supported 
entirely  by  the  pride  of  caste  among  the  scavengers,  who  are 
all  of  the  lowest  class.  The  right  of  sweeping  within  a  certain 
range  is  recognized  by  the  caste  to  belong  to  a  certain  member; 
and  if  any  other  member  presumes  to  sweep  within  that  range, 
he  is  excommunicated — no  other  member  will  smoke  out  of  his 
pipe  or  drink  out  of  his  jug;  and  he  can  get  restored  to  caste 
only  by  a  feast  to  the  whole  body  of  sweepers.  If  any  house 
keeper  within  a  particular  circle  happens  to  offend  the  sweeper 
of  that  range,  none  of  his  filth  will  be  removed  until  he  pacifies 
him,  because  no  other  sweeper  will  dare  to  touch  it;  and  the 
people  of  a  town  are  often  more  tyrannized  over  by  these  people 
than  by  any  other. 

142 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

A  footnote  by  Major  Sleeman's  editor,  Mr.  Vin 
cent  Arthur  Smith,  says  that  in  our  day  this  tyranny 
of  the  sweepers'  guild  is  one  of  the  many  difficulties 
which  bar  the  progress  of  Indian  sanitary  reform. 
Think  of  this: 

The  sweepers  cannot  be  readily  coerced,  because  no  Hindu 
or  Mussulman  would  do  their  work  to  save  his  life,  nor  will  he 
pollute  himself  by  beating  the  refractory  scavenger. 

They  certainly  do  seem  to  have  the  whip-hand; 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  impregnable 
position.  "The  vested  rights  described  in  the  text 
are  so  fully  recognized  in  practice  that  they  are  fre 
quently  the  subject  of  sale  or  mortgage.'1  Just  like  a 
milk-route;  or  like  a  London  crossing-sweepership. 
It  is  said  that  the  London  crossing-sweeper's  right 
to  his  crossing  is  recognized  by  the  rest  of  the  guild; 
that  they  protect  him  in  its  possession ;  that  certain 
choice  crossings  are  valuable  property,  and  are 
salable  at  high  figures.  I  have  noticed  that  the  man 
who  sweeps  in  front  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores 
has  a  wealthy  South  African  aristocratic  style  about 
him;  and  when  he  is  off  his  guard,  he  has  exactly 
that  look  on  his  face  which  you  always  see  in  the 
face  of  a  man  who  is  saving  up  his  daughter  to  marry 
her  to  a  duke. 

It  appears  from  Sleeman  that  in  India  the  occupa 
tion  of  elephant-driver  is  confined  to  Mohammedans. 
I  wonder  why  that  is.  The  water-carrier  (bheestie) 
is  a  Mohammedan,  but  it  is  said  that  the  reason  of 
that  is,  that  the  Hindu's  religion  does  not  allow 
him  to  touch  the  skin  of  dead  kine,  and  that  is  what 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  water-sack  is  made  of;  it  would  defile  him. 
And  it  doesn't  allow  him  to  eat  meat;  the  animal 
that  furnished  the  meat  was  murdered,  and  to  take 
any  creature's  life  is  a  sin.  It  is  a  good  and  gentle 
religion,  but  inconvenient. 

A  great  Indian  river,  at  low  water,  suggests  the 
familiar  anatomical  picture  of  a  skinned  human 
body,  the  intricate  mesh  of  interwoven  muscles  and 
tendons  to  stand  for  water-channels,  and  the  archi 
pelagoes  of  fat  and  flesh  inclosed  by  them  to  stand 
for  the  sandbars.  Somewhere  on  this  journey  we 
passed  such  a  river,  and  on  a  later  journey  we  saw 
in  the  Sutlej  the  duplicate  of  that  river.  Curious 
rivers  they  are;  low  shores  a  dizzy  distance  apart, 
with  nothing  between  but  an  enormous  acreage  of 
sand-flats  with  sluggish  little  veins  of  water  dribbling 
around  among  them;  Saharas  of  sand,  smallpox- 
pitted  with  footprints  punctured  in  belts  as  straight 
as  the  equator  clear  from  the  one  shore  to  the  other 
(barring  the  channel  interruptions) — a  dry-shod 
ferry,  you  see.  Long  railway  bridges  are  required 
for  this  sort  of  rivers  and  India  has  them.  You 
approach  Allahabad  by  a  very  long  one.  It  was 
now  carrying  us  across  the  bed  of  the  Jumna,  a  bed 
which  did  not  seem  to  have  been  slept  in  for  one 
while  or  more.  It  wasn't  all  river-bed — most  of  it 
was  overflow  ground. 

Allahabad  means  "City  of  God."  I  get  this  from 
the  books.  From  a  printed  curiosity — a  letter  writ 
ten  by  one  of  those  brave  and  confident  Hindu 
strugglers  with  the  English  tongue,  called  a  "babu" 
— I  got  a  more  compressed  translation:  "Godville." 

144 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

It  is  perfectly  correct,  but  that  is  the  most  that  can 
be  said  for  it. 

We  arrived  in  the  forenoon,  and  short-handed; 
for  Satan  got  left  behind  somewhere  that  morning, 
and  did  not  overtake  us  until  after  nightfall.  It 
seemed  very  peaceful  without  him.  The  world 
seemed  asleep  and  dreaming. 

I  did  not  see  the  native  town,  I  think.  I  do  not 
remember  why;  for  an  incident  connects  it  with  the 
Great  Mutiny,  and  that  is  enough  to  make  any 
place  interesting.  But  I  saw  the  English  part  of 
the  city.  It  is  a  town  of  wide  avenues  and  noble 
distances,  and  is  comely  and  alluring,  and  full  of 
suggestions  of  comfort  and  leisure,  and  of  the 
serenity  which  a  good  conscience  buttressed  by  a 
sufficient  bank  -  account  gives.  The  bungalows 
(dwellings)  stand  well  back  in  the  seclusion  and  pri 
vacy  of  large  inclosed  compounds  (private  grounds, 
as  we  should  say)  and  in  the  shade  and  shelter  of 
trees.  Even  the  photographer  and  the  prosperous 
merchant  ply  their  industries  in  the  elegant  reserve 
of  big  compounds,  and  the  citizens  drive  in  there 
upon  their  business  occasions.  And  not  in  cabs — 
no;  in  the  Indian  cities  cabs  are  for  the  drifting 
stranger ;  all  the  white  citizens  have  private  carriages ; 
and  each  carriage  has  a  flock  of  white-turbaned 
black  footmen  and  drivers  all  over  it.  The  vicinity 
of  a  lecture-hall  looks  like  a  snow-storm,  and  makes 
the  lecturer  feel  like  an  opera.  India  has  many 
names,  and  they  are  correctly  descriptive.  It  is 
the  Land  of  Contradictions,  the  Land  of  Subtlety 
and  Superstition,  the  Land  of  Wealth  and  Poverty, 
ii.— 10  I45 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  Land  of  Splendor  and  Desolation,  the  Land  of 
Plague  and  Famine,  the  Land  of  the  Thug  and  the 
Poisoner,  and  of  the  Meek  and  the  Patient,  the 
Land  of  the  Suttee,  the  Land  of  the  Unreinstatable 
Widow,  the  Land  where  All  Life  is  Holy,  the  Land 
of  Cremation,  the  Land  where  the  Vulture  is  a 
Grave  and  a  Monument,  the  Land  of  the  Multitudi 
nous  Gods;  and  if  signs  go  for  anything,  it  is  the 
Land  of  the  Private  Carriage. 

In  Bombay  the  forewoman  of  a  millinery  shop 
came  to  the  hotel  in  her  private  carriage  to  take  the 
measure  for  a  gown — not  for  me,  but  for  another. 
She  had  come  out  to  India  to  make  a  temporary 
stay,  but  was  extending  it  indefinitely;  indeed,  she 
was  purposing  to  end  her  days  there.  In  London, 
she  said,  her  work  had  been  hard,  her  hours  long; 
for  economy's  sake  she  had  had  to  live  in  shabby 
rooms  and  far  away  from  the  shop,  watch  the 
pennies,  deny  herself  many  of  the  common  comforts 
of  life,  restrict  herself  in  effect  to  its  bare  necessities, 
eschew  cabs,  travel  third-class  by  underground  train 
to  and  from  her  work,  swallowing  coal-smoke  and 
cinders  all  the  way,  and  sometimes  troubled  with 
the  society  of  men  and  women  who  were  less  desir 
able  than  the  smoke  and  the  cinders.  But  in  Bom 
bay,  on  almost  any  kind  of  wages,  she  could  live  in 
comfort,  and  keep  her  carriage,  and  have  six  servants 
in  place  of  the  woman-of -all-work  she  had  had  in 
her  English  home.  Later,  in  Calcutta,  I  found  that 
the  Standard  Oil  clerks  had  small  one-horse  ve 
hicles,  and  did  no  walking;  and  I  was  told  that 
the  clerks  of  the  other  large  concerns  there  had 

146 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

the    like    equipment.     But    to    return   to    Allaha 
bad. 

I  was  up  at  dawn,  the  next  morning.  In  India 
the  tourist's  servant  does  not  sleep  in  a  room  in  the 
hotel,  but  rolls  himself  up  head  and  ears  in  his 
blanket  and  stretches  himself  on  the  veranda,  across 
the  front  of  his  master's  door,  and  spends  the  night 
there.  I  don't  believe  anybody's  servant  occupies  a 
room.  Apparently,  the  bungalow  servants  sleep  on 
the  veranda;  it  is  roomy,  and  goes  all  around  the 
house.  I  speak  of  men-servants;  I  saw  none  of  the 
other  sex.  I  think  there  are  none,  except  child- 
nurses.  I  was  up  at  dawn,  and  walked  around  the 
veranda,  past  the  rows  of  sleepers.  In  front  of  one 
door  a  Hindu  servant  was  squatting,  waiting  for 
his  master  to  call  him.  He  had  polished  the  yellow 
shoes  and  placed  them  by  the  door,  and  now  he 
had  nothing  to  do  but  wait.  It  was  freezing  cold, 
but  there  he  was,  as  motionless  as  a  sculptured 
image,  and  as  patient.  It  troubled  me.  I  wanted 
to  say  to  him,  "Don't  crouch  there  like  that  and 
freeze;  nobody  requires  it  of  you;  stir  around  and 
get  warm."  But  I  hadn't  the  words.  I  thought  of 
saying  jeldy  jow,  but  I  couldn't  remember  what  it 
meant,  so  I  didn't  say  it.  I  knew  another  phrase, 
but  it  wouldn't  come  to  my  mind.  I  moved  on, 
purposing  to  dismiss  him  from  my  thoughts,  but  his 
bare  legs  and  bare  feet  kept  him  there.  They  kept 
drawing  me  back  from  the  sunny  side  to  a  point 
whence  I  could  see  him.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  he 
had  not  changed  his  attitude  in  the  least  degree.  It 
was  a  curious  and  impressive  exhibition  of  meekness 

147 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  patience,  or  fortitude,  or  indifference,  I  did  not 
know  which.  But  it  worried  me,  and  it  was  spoiling 
my  morning.  In  fact,  it  spoiled  two  hours  of  it 
quite  thoroughly.  I  quitted  this  vicinity,  then,  and 
left  him  to  punish  himself  as  much  as  he  might 
want  to.  But  up  to  that  time  the  man  had  not 
changed  his  attitude  a  hair.  He  will  always  remain 
with  me,  I  suppose;  his  figure  never  grows  vague 
in  my  memory.  Whenever  I  read  of  Indian  resig 
nation,  Indian  patience  under  wrongs,  hardships, 
and  misfortunes,  he  comes  before  me.  He  becomes 
a  personification,  and  stands  for  India  in  trouble. 
And  for  untold  ages  India  in  trouble  has  been  pur 
sued  with  the  very  remark  which  I  was  going  to 
utter  but  didn't,  because  its  meaning  had  slipped 
me:  Jeldy  jowl  ("Come,  shove  along!")  Why,  it 
was  the  very  thing. 

In  the  early  brightness  we  made  a  long  drive  out 
to  the  Fort.  Part  of  the  way  was  beautiful.  It  led 
under  stately  trees  and  through  groups  of  native 
houses  and  by  the  usual  village  well,  where  the 
picturesque  gangs  are  always  flocking  to  and  fro  and 
laughing  and  chattering;  and  this  time  brawny  men 
were  deluging  their  bronze  bodies  with  the  limpid 
water,  and  making  a  refreshing  and  enticing  show 
of  it;  enticing,  for  the  sun  was  already  transacting 
business,  firing  India  up  for  the  day.  There  was 
plenty  of  this  early  bathing  going  on,  for  it  was  get 
ting  toward  breakfast-time,  and  with  an  unpurified 
body  the  Hindu  must  not  eat. 

Then  we  struck  into  the  hot  plain,  and  found  the 
roads  crowded  with  pilgrims  of  both  sexes,  for  one 

148 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

of  the  great  religious  fairs  of  India  was  being  held, 
just  beyond  the  Fort,  at  the  junction  of  the  sacred 
rivers,  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna.  Three  sacred 
rivers,  I  should  have  said,  for  there  is  a  subterranean 
one.  Nobody  has  seen  it,  but  that  doesn't  signify. 
The  fact  that  it  is  there  is  enough.  These  pilgrims 
had  come  from  all  over  India;  some  of  them  had 
been  months  on  the  way,  plodding  patiently  along 
in  the  heat  and  dust,  worn,  poor,  hungry,  but  sup 
ported  and  sustained  by  an  unwavering  faith  and 
belief;  they  were  supremely  happy  and  content, 
now;  their  full  and  sufficient  reward  was  at  hand; 
they  were  going  to  be  cleansed  from  every  vestige 
of  sin  and  corruption  by  these  holy  waters  which 
make  utterly  pure  whatsoever  thing  they  touch,  even 
the  dead  and  rotten.  It  is  wonderful,  the  power  of 
a  faith  like  that,  that  can  make  multitudes  upon 
multitudes  of  the  old  and  weak  and  the  young  and 
frail  enter  without  hesitation  or  complaint  upon  such 
incredible  journeys  and  endure  the  resultant  miseries 
without  repining.  It  is  done  in  love,  or  it  is  done 
in  fear;  I  do  not  know  which  it  is.  No  matter 
what  the  impulse  is,  the  act  born  of  it  is  beyond 
imagination  marvelous  to  our  kind  of  people,  the 
cold  whites.  There  are  choice  great  natures  among 
us  that  could  exhibit  the  equivalent  of  this  prodigious 
self -sacrifice,  but  the  rest  of  us  know  that  we  should 
not  be  equal  to  anything  approaching  it.  Still,  we 
all  talk  self-sacrifice,  and  this  makes  me  hope  that 
we  are  large  enough  to  honor  it  in  the  Hindu. 

Two  millions  of  natives  arrive  at  this  fair  every 
year.    How  many  start,  and  die  on  the  road,  from 

149 


MARK    TWAIN 

age  and  fatigue  and  disease  and  scanty  nourishment, 
and  how  many  die  on  the  return,  from  the  same 
causes,  no  one  knows;  but  the  tale  is  great,  one 
may  say  enormous.  Every  twelfth  year  is  held  to 
be  a  year  of  peculiar  grace;  a  greatly  augmented 
volume  of  pilgrims  results  then.  The  twelfth  year 
has  held  this  distinction  since  the  remotest  times,  it 
is  said.  It  is  said  also  that  there  is  to  be  but  one 
more  twelfth  year — for  the  Ganges.  After  that, 
that  holiest  of  all  sacred  rivers  will  cease  to  be  holy, 
and  will  be  abandoned  by  the  pilgrims  for  many 
centuries;  how  many,  the  wise  men  have  not  stated. 
At  the  end  of  that  interval  it  will  become  holy  again. 
Meantime,  the  data  will  be  arranged  by  those  people 
who  have  charge  of  all  such  matters,  the  great  chief 
Brahmans.  It  will  be  like  shutting  down  a  mint. 
At  first  glance  it  looks  most  unbrahmanically  uncom 
mercial,  but  I  am  not  disturbed,  being  soothed  and 
tranquilized  by  their  reputation.  "Brer  fox  he  lay 
low,"  as  Uncle  Remus  says;  and  at  the  judicious 
time  he  will  spring  something  on  the  Indian  public 
which  will  show  that  he  was  not  financially  asleep 
when  he  took  the  Ganges  out  of  the  market. 

Great  numbers  of  the  natives  along  the  roads 
were  bringing  away  holy  water  from  the  rivers. 
They  would  carry  it  far  and  wide  in  India  and  sell 
it.  Tavernier,  the  French  traveler  (seventeenth  cen 
tury),  notes  that  Ganges  water  is  often  given  at 
weddings,  "each  guest  receiving  a  cup  or  two,  accord 
ing  to  the  liberality  of  the  host;  sometimes  two  or 
three  thousand  rupees'  worth  of  it  is  consumed  at 
a  wedding." 

150 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

The  Fort  is  a  huge  old  structure,  and  has  had  a 
large  experience  in  religions.  In  its  great  court 
stands  a  monolith  which  was  placed  there  more 
than  two  thousand  years  ago  to  preach  Buddhism  by 
its  pious  inscription;  the  Fort  was  built  three  cen 
turies  ago  by  a  Mohammedan  Emperor — a  resancti- 
fication  of  the  place  in  the  interest  of  that  religion. 
There  is  a  Hindu  temple,  too,  with  subterranean 
ramifications  stocked  with  shrines  and  idols;  and 
now  the  Fort  belongs  to  the  English,  it  contains  a 
Christian  Church.  Insured  in  all  the  companies. 

From  the  lofty  ramparts  one  has  a  fine  view  of 
the  sacred  rivers.  They  join  at  that  point — the 
pale-blue  Jumna,  apparently  clean  and  clear,  and 
the  muddy  Ganges,  dull  yellow  and  not  clean.  On 
a  long  curved  spit  between  the  rivers,  towns  of  tents 
were  visible,  with  a  multitude  of  fluttering  pennons, 
and  a  mighty  swarm  of  pilgrims.  It  was  a  trouble 
some  place  to  get  down  to,  and  not  a  quiet  place 
when  you  arrived;  but  it  was  interesting.  There 
was  a  world  of  activity  and  turmoil  and  noise,  partly 
religious,  partly  commercial;  for  the  Mohammedans 
were  there  to  curse  and  sell,  and  the  Hindus  to  buy 
and  pray.  It  is  a  fair  as  well  as  a  religious  festival. 
Crowds  were  bathing,  praying,  and  drinking  the 
purifying  waters,  and  many  sick  pilgrims  had  come 
long  journeys  in  palanquins  to  be  healed  of  their 
maladies  by  a  bath;  or  if  that  might  not  be,  then  to 
die  on  the  blessed  banks  and  so  make  sure  of  heaven. 
There  were  fakirs  in  plenty,  with  their  bodies 
dusted  over  with  ashes  and  their  long  hair  caked 
together  with  cow-dung;  for  the  cow  is  holy  and  so 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  the  rest  of  it;  so  holy  that  the  good  Hindu 
peasant  frescoes  the  walls  of  his  hut  with  this  refuse, 
and  also  constructs  ornamental  figures  out  of  it  for 
the  gracing  of  his  dirt  floor.  There  were  seated 
families,  fearfully  and  wonderfully  painted,  who  by 
attitude  and  grouping  represented  the  families  of 
certain  great  gods.  There  was  a  holy  man  who  sat 
naked  by  the  day  and  by  the  week  on  a  cluster 
of  iron  spikes,  and  did  not  seem  to  mind  it;  and 
another  holy  man,  who  stood  all  day  holding  his 
withered  arms  motionless  aloft,  and  was  said  to 
have  been  doing  it  for  years.  All  of  these  performers 
have  a  cloth  on  the  ground  beside  them  for  the  recep 
tion  of  contributions,  and  even  the  poorest  of  the 
people  give  a  trifle  and  hope  that  the  sacrifice  will 
be  blessed  to  him.  At  last  came  a  procession  of 
naked  holy  people  marching  by  and  chanting,  and 
I  wrenched  myself  away. 


152 


CHAPTER  XIV 

BAFFLING  HINDU  THEOLOGY 

The  man  who  is  ostentatious  of  his  modesty  is  twin  to  the  statue  that  wears 
a  fig-leaf .—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  journey  to  Benares  was  all  in  daylight,  and 
occupied  but  a  few  hours.  It  was  admirably 
dusty.  The  dust  settled  upon  you  in  a  thick  ashy 
layer  and  turned  you  into  a  fakir,  with  nothing 
lacking  to  the  r61e  but  the  cow-manure  and  the  sense 
of  holiness.  There  was  a  change  of  cars  about  mid- 
afternoon  at  Moghul-serai — if  that  was  the  name — 
and  a  wait  of  two  hours  there  for  the  Benares  train. 
We  could  have  found  a  carriage  and  driven  to  the 
sacred  city,  but  we  should  have  lost  the  wait.  In 
other  countries  a  long  wait  at  a  station  is  a  dull  thing 
and  tedious,  but  one  has  no  right  to  have  that  feel 
ing  in  India.  You  have  the  monster  crowd  of  be- 
jeweled  natives,  the  stir,  the  bustle,  the  confusion, 
the  shifting  splendors  of  the  costumes — dear  me, 
the  delight  of  it,  the  charm  of  it  are  beyond  speech. 
The  two-hour  wait  was  over  too  soon.  Among 
other  satisfying  things  to  look  at  was  a  minor  native 
prince  from  the  backwoods  somewhere,  with  his 
guard  of  honor,  a  ragged  but  wonderfully  gaudy 
gang  of  fifty  dark  barbarians  armed  with  rusty  flint 
lock  muskets.  The  general  show  came  so  near  to 
exhausting  variety  that  one  would  have  said  that  no 


MARK    TWAIN 

addition  to  it  could  be  conspicuous,  but  when  this 
Falstaff  and  his  motleys  marched  through  it  one  saw 
that  that  seeming  impossibility  had  happened. 

We  got  away  by  and  by,  and  soon  reached  the 
outer  edge  of  Benares ;  then  there  was  another  wait ; 
but,  as  usual,  with  something  to  look  at.  This  was 
a  cluster  of  little  canvas-boxes — palanquins.  A 
canvas-box  is  not  much  of  a  sight — when  empty; 
but  when  there  is  a  lady  in  it,  it  is  an  object  of 
interest.  These  boxes  were  grouped  apart,  in  the 
full  blaze  of  the  terrible  sun,  during  the  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  that  we  tarried  there.  They 
contained  zenana  ladies.  They  had  to  sit  up;  there 
was  not  room  enough  to  stretch  out.  They  prob 
ably  did  not  mind  it.  They  are  used  to  the  close 
captivity  of  their  dwellings  all  their  lives ;  when  they 
go  a  journey  they  are  carried  to  the  train  in  these 
boxes;  in  the  train  they  have  to  be  secluded  from 
inspection.  Many  people  pity  them,  and  I  always 
did  it  myself  and  never  charged  anything;  but  it  is 
doubtful  if  this  compassion  is  valued.  While  we 
were  in  India  some  good-hearted  Europeans  in  one 
of  the  cities  proposed  to  restrict  a  large  park  to  the 
use  of  zenana  ladies,  so  that  they  could  go  there 
and  in  assured  privacy  go  about  unveiled  and  enjoy 
the  sunshine  and  air  as  they  had  never  enjoyed  them 
before.  The  good  intentions  back  of  the  proposition 
were  recognized,  and  sincere  thanks  returned  for  it, 
but  the  proposition  itself  met  with  a  prompt  declina 
tion  at  the  hands  of  those  who  were  authorized  to 
speak  for  the  zenana  ladies.  Apparently,  the  idea 
was  shocking  to  the  ladies — indeed,  it  was  quite 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

manifestly  shocking.  Was  that  proposition  the 
equivalent  of  inviting  European  ladies  to  assemble 
scantily  and  scandalously  clothed  in  the  seclusion 
of  a  private  park?  It  seemed  to  be  about  that. 

Without  doubt  modesty  is  nothing  less  than  a 
holy  feeling;  and  without  doubt  the  person  whose 
rule  of  modesty  has  been  transgressed  feels  the  same 
sort  of  wound  that  he  would  feel  if  something  made 
holy  to  him  by  his  religion  had  suffered  a  desecration. 
I  say  "rule  of  modesty"  because  there  are  about  a 
million  rules  in  the  world,  and  this  makes  a  million 
standards  to  be  looked  out  for.  Major  Sleeman  men 
tions  the  case  of  some  high-caste  veiled  ladies  who 
were  profoundly  scandalized  when  some  English 
young  ladies  passed  by  with  faces  bare  to  the  world; 
so  scandalized  that  they  spoke  out  with  strong 
indignation  and  wondered  that  people  could  be  so 
shameless  as  to  expose  their  persons  like  that.  And 
yet  "the  legs  of  the  objectors  were  naked  to  mid- 
thigh."  Both  parties  were  clean-minded  and  irre 
proachably  modest,  while  abiding  by  their  separate 
rules,  but  they  couldn't  have  traded  rules  for  a 
change  without  suffering  considerable  discomfort. 
All  human  rules  are  more  or  less  idiotic,  I  suppose. 
It  is  best  so,  no  doubt.  The  way  it  is  now,  the 
asylums  can  hold  the  sane  people,  but  if  we  tried  to 
shut  up  the  insane  we  should  run  out  of  building 
materials. 

You  have  a  long  drive  through  the  outskirts  of 
Benares  before  you  get  to  the  hotel.  And  all  the 
aspects  are  melancholy.  It  is  a  vision  of  dusty 
sterility,  decaying  temples,  crumbling  tombs,  broken 


MARK    TWAIN 

mud  walls,  shabby  huts.  The  whole  region  seems 
to  ache  with  age  and  penury.  It  must  take  ten 
thousand  years  of  want  to  produce  such  an  aspect. 
We  were  still  outside  of  the  great  native  city  when 
we  reached  the  hotel.  It  was  a  quiet  and  homelike 
house,  inviting,  and  manifestly  comfortable.  But 
we  liked  its  annex  better,  and  went  thither.  It  was 
a  mile  away,  perhaps,  and  stood  in  the  midst  of  a 
large  compound,  and  was  built  bungalow  fashion, 
everything  on  the  ground  floor,  and  a  veranda  all 
around.  They  have  doors  in  India,  but  I  don't 
know  why.  They  don't  fasten,  and  they  stand 
open,  as  a  rule,  with  a  curtain  hanging  in  the  door- 
space  to  keep  out  the  glare  of  the  sun.  Still,  there 
is  plenty  of  privacy,  for  no  white  person  will  come 
in  without  notice,  of  course.  The  native  men-ser 
vants  will,  but  they  don't  seem  to  count.  They 
glide  in,  barefoot  and  noiseless,  and  are  in  the  midst 
before  one  knows  it.  At  first  this  is  a  shock,  and 
sometimes  it  is  an  embarrassment;  but  one  has  to 
get  used  to  it,  and  does. 

There  was  one  tree  in  the  compound,  and  a  mon 
key  lived  in  it.  At  first  I  was  strongly  interested 
in  the  tree,  for  I  was  told  that  it  was  the  renowned 
peepul — the  tree  in  whose  shadow  you  cannot  tell  a 
lie.  This  one  failed  to  stand  the  test,  and  I  went 
away  from  it  disappointed.  There  was  a  softly 
creaking  well  close  by,  and  a  couple  of  oxen  drew 
water  from  it  by  the  hour,  superintended  by  two 
natives  dressed  in  the  usual  "turban  and  pocket 
handkerchief."  The  tree  and  the  well  were  the  only 
scenery,  and  so  the  compound  was  a  soothing  and 

156 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

lonesome  and  satisfying  place;  and  very  restful 
after  so  many  activities.  There  was  nobody  in  our 
bungalow  but  ourselves;  the  other  guests  were  in 
the  next  one,  where  the  table  d'hdte  was  furnished. 
A  body  could  not  be  more  pleasantly  situated. 
Each  room  had  the  customary  bath  attached — a 
room  ten  or  twelve  feet  square,  with  a  roomy  stone- 
paved  pit  in  it  and  abundance  of  water.  One  could 
not  easily  improve  upon  this  arrangement,  except 
by  furnishing  it  with  cold  water  and  excluding  the 
hot,  in  deference  to  the  fervency  of  the  climate;  but 
that  is  forbidden.  It  would  damage  the  bather's 
health.  The  stranger  is  warned  against  taking  cold 
baths  in  India,  but  even  the  most  intelligent  strangers 
are  fools,  and  they  do  not  obey,  and  so  they  pres 
ently  get  laid  up.  I  was  the  most  intelligent  fool 
that  passed  through,  that  year.  But  I  am  still  more 
intelligent  now.  Now  that  it  is  too  late. 

I  wonder  if  the  dorian,  if  that  is  the  name  of  it,  is 
another  superstition,  like  the  peepul  tree.  There 
was  a  great  abundance  and  variety  of  tropical  fruits, 
but  the  dorian  was  never  in  evidence.  It  was  never 
the  season  for  the  dorian.  It  was  always  going  to 
arrive  from  Burma  some  time  or  other,  but  it  never 
did.  By  all  accounts,  it  was  a  most  strange  fruit, 
and  incomparably  delicious  to  the  taste,  but  not  to 
the  smell.  Its  rind  was  said  to  exude  a  stench  of 
so  atrocious  a  nature  that  when  a  dorian  was  in  the 
room  even  the  presence  of  a  polecat  was  a  refresh 
ment.  We  found  many  who  had  eaten  the  dorian, 
and  they  all  spoke  of  it  with  a  sort  of  rapture. 
They  said  that  if  you  could  hold  your  nose  until 

iS7 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  fruit  was  in  your  mouth  a  sacred  joy  would 
suffuse  you  from  head  to  foot  that  would  make 
you  oblivious  to  the  smell  of  the  rind,  but  that  if 
your  grip  slipped  and  you  caught  the  smell  of  the 
rind  before  the  fruit  was  in  your  mouth,  you  would 
faint.  There  is  a  fortune  in  that  rind.  Some  day 
somebody  will  import  it  into  Europe  and  sell  it  for 
cheese. 

Benares  was  not  a  disappointment.  It  justified 
its  reputation  as  a  curiosity.  It  is  on  high  ground, 
and  overhangs  a  grand  curve  of  the  Ganges.  It  is  a 
vast  mass  of  building,  compactly  crusting  a  hill,  and 
is  cloven  in  all  directions  by  an  intricate  confusion 
of  cracks  which  stand  for  streets.  Tall,  slim  min 
arets  and  beflagged  temple-spires  rise  out  of  it  and 
give  it  picturesqueness,  viewed  from  the  river.  The 
city  is  as  busy  as  an  anthill,  and  the  hurly-burly  of 
human  life  swarming  along  the  web  of  narrow  streets 
reminds  one  of  the  ants.  The  sacred  cow  swarms 
along,  too,  and  goes  whither  she  pleases,  and  takes 
toll  of  the  grain-shops,  and  is  very  much  in  the  way, 
and  is  a  good  deal  of  a  nuisance,  since  she  must  not 
be  molested. 

Benares  is  older  than  history,  older  than  tradition, 
older  even  than  legend,  and  looks  twice  as  old  as  all 
of  them  put  together.  From  a  Hindu  statement 
quoted  in  Rev.  Mr.  Parker's  compact  and  lucid 
Guide  to  Benares,  I  find  that  the  site  of  the  town 
was  the  beginning-place  of  the  Creation.  It  was 
merely  an  upright  "lingam,"  at  first,  no  larger  than 
a  stovepipe,  and  stood  in  the  midst  of  a  shoreless 
ocean.  This  was  the  work  of  the  God  Vishnu. 

158 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

Later  he  spread  the  lingam  out  till  its  surface  was 
ten  miles  across.  Still  it  was  not  large  enough  for 
the  business;  therefore  he  presently  built  the  globe 
around  it.  Benares  is  thus  the  center  of  the  earth. 
This  is  considered  an  advantage. 

It  has  had  a  tumultuous  history,  both  materially 
and  spiritually.  It  started  Brahmanically,  many  ages 
ago;  then  by  and  by  Buddha  came  in  recent  times 
twenty-five  hundred  years  ago,  and  after  that  it  was 
Buddhist  during  many  centuries — twelve,  perhaps — 
but  the  Brahmans  got  the  upper  hand  again,  then, 
and  have  held  it  ever  since.  It  is  unspeakably  sacred 
in  Hindu  eyes,  and  is  as  unsanitary  as  it  is  sacred, 
and  smells  like  the  rind  of  the  dorian.  It  is  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Brahman  faith,  and  one-eighth  of  the 
population  are  priests  of  that  church.  But  it  is  not 
an  overstock,  for  they  have  all  India  as  a  prey.  All 
India  flocks  thither  on  pilgrimage,  and  pours  its 
savings  into  the  pockets  of  the  priests  in  a  generous 
stream,  which  never  fails.  A  priest  with  a  good 
stand  on  the  shore  of  the  Ganges  is  much  better  off 
than  the  sweeper  of  the  best  crossing  in  London. 
A  good  stand  is  worth  a  world  of  money.  The 
holy  proprietor  of  it  sits  under  his  grand  spectacular 
umbrella  and  blesses  people  all  his  life,  and  collects 
his  commission,  and  grows  fat  and  rich;  and  the 
stand  passes  from  father  to  son,  down  and  down 
and  down  through  the  ages,  and  remains  a  permanent 
and  lucrative  estate  in  the  family.  As  Mr.  Parker 
suggests,  it  can  become  a  subject  of  dispute,  at  one 
time  or  another,  and  then  the  matter  will  be  settled, 
not  by  prayer  and  fasting  and  consultations  with 


MARK    TWAIN 

Vishnu,  but  by  the  intervention  of  a  much  more 
puissant  power — an  English  court.  In  Bombay  I 
was  told  by  an  American  missionary  that  in  India 
there  are  640  Protestant  missionaries  at  work.  At 
first  it  seemed  an  immense  force,  but  of  course  that 
was  a  thoughtless  idea.  One  missionary  to  500,000 
natives — no,  that  is  not  a  force;  it  is  the  reverse  of 
it;  640  marching  against  an  intrenched  camp  of 
300,000,000 — the  odds  are  too  great.  A  force  of 
640  in  Benares  alone  would  have  its  hands  overfull 
with  8,000  Brahman  priests  for  adversary.  Mission 
aries  need  to  be  well  equipped  with  hope  and  confi 
dence,  and  this  equipment  they  seem  to  have  always 
had  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Mr.  Parker  has  it. 
It  enables  him  to  get  a  favorable  outlook  out  of 
statistics  which  might  add  up  differently  with  other 
mathematicians.  For  instance : 

"  During  the  past  few  years  competent  observers 
declare  that  the  number  of  pilgrims  to  Benares  has 
increased." 

And  then  he  adds  up  this  fact  and  gets  this  con 
clusion  : 

"But  the  revival,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  has  in  it 
the  marks  of  death.  It  is  a  spasmodic  struggle  be 
fore  dissolution." 

In  this  world  we  have  seen  the  Roman  Catholic 
power  dying,  upon  these  same  terms,  for  many 
centuries.  Many  a  time  we  have  gotten  all  ready 
for  the  funeral  and  found  it  postponed  again,  on 
account  of  the  weather  or  something.  Taught  by 
experience,  we  ought  not  to  put  on  our  things  for 
this  Brahmanical  one  till  we  see  the  procession  move. 

1 60 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Apparently  one  of  the  most  uncertain  things  in  the 
world  is  the  funeral  of  a  religion. 

I  should  have  been  glad  to  acquire  some  sort  of 
idea  of  Hindu  theology,  but  the  difficulties  were 
too  great,  the  matter  was  too  intricate.  Even  the 
mere  A  B  C  of  it  is  baffling.  There  is  a  trinity — 
Brahma,  Shiva,  and  Vishnu — independent  powers, 
apparently,  though  one  cannot  feel  quite  sure  of 
that,  because  in  one  of  the  temples  there  is  an  image 
where  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  concentrate 
the  three  in  one  person.  The  three  have  other  names 
and  plenty  of  them,  and  this  makes  confusion  in 
one's  mind.  The  three  have  wives  and  the  wives 
have  several  names,  and  this  increases  the  confusion. 
There  are  children,  the  children  have  many  names, 
and  thus  the  confusion  goes  on  and  on.  It  is  not 
worth  while  to  try  to  get  any  grip  upon  the  cloud 
of  minor  gods,  there  are  too  many  of  them. 

It  is  even  a  justifiable  economy  to  leave  Brahma, 
the  cniefest  god  of  all,  out  of  your  studies,  for  he 
seems  to  cut  no  great  figure  in  India.  The  vast 
bulk  of  the  national  worship  is  lavished  upon  Shiva 
and  Vishnu  and  their  families.  Shiva's  symbol — 
the  "lingam"  with  which  Vishnu  began  the  Crea 
tion — is  worshiped  by  everybody,  apparently.  It 
is  the  commonest  object  in  Benares.  It  is  on  view 
everywhere,  it  is  garlanded  with  flowers,  offerings 
are  made  to  it,  it  suffers  no  neglect.  Commonly  it 
is  an  upright  stone,  shaped  like  a  thimble — some 
times  like  an  elongated  thimble.  This  priapus-wor- 
ship,  then,  is  older  than  history.  Mr.  Parker  says  that 
the  lingams  in  Benares  "outnumber  the  inhabitants." 
H.— ii  161 


MARK    TWAIN 

In  Benares  there  are  many  Mohammedan  mosques. 
There  are  Hindu  temples  without  number — these 
quaintly  shaped  and  elaborately  sculptured  little 
stone  jugs  crowd  all  the  lanes.  The  Ganges  itself 
and  every  individual  drop  of  water  in  it  are  temples. 
Religion,  then,  is  the  business  of  Benares,  just  as 
gold-production  is  the  business  of  Johannesburg. 
Other  industries  count  for  nothing  as  compared  with 
the  vast  and  all-absorbing  rush  and  drive  and  boom 
of  the  town's  specialty.  Benares  is  the  sacredest  of 
sacred  cities.  The  moment  you  step  across  the 
sharply  defined  line  which  separates  it  from  the  rest 
of  the  globe,  you  stand  upon  ineffably  and  unspeak 
ably  holy  ground.  Mr.  Parker  says:  "It  is  impos 
sible  to  convey  any  adequate  idea  of  the  intense 
feelings  of  veneration  and  affection  with  which  the 
pious  Hindu  regards  'Holy  Kashi'  (Benares)."  And 
then  he  gives  you  this  vivid  and  moving  picture: 

Let  a  Hindu  regiment  be  marched  through  the  district,  and 
as  soon  as  they  cross  the  line  and  enter  the  limits  of  the  holy 
place  they  rend  the  air  with  cries  of  "  Kashi  ji  ki  jai — jai !"  (Holy 
Kashi!  Hail  to  thee!  Hail!  Hail!  Hail!)  The  weary  pilgrim, 
scarcely  able  to  stand  with  age  and  weakness,  blinded  by  the 
dust  and  heat,  and  almost  dead  with  fatigue,  crawls  out  of  the 
ovenlike  railway-carriage,  and  as  soon  as  his  feet  touch  the 
ground  he  lifts  up  his  withered  hands  and  utters  the  same  pious 
exclamation.  Let  a  European  in  some  distant  city  in  casual  talk 
in  the  bazar  mention  the  fact  that  he  has  lived  at  Benares, 
and  at  once  voices  will  be  raised  to  call  down  blessings  on  his 
head,  for  a  dweller  in  Benares  is  of  all  men  most  blessed. 

It  makes  our  own  religious  enthusiasm  seem  pale  and 
cold.  Inasmuch  as  the  life  of  religion  is  in  the  heart ,  not 
the  head,  Mr.  Parker's  touching  picture  seems  to  prom 
ise  a  sort  of  indefinite  postponement  of  that  funeral. 

162 


CHAPTER  XV 

HOW  TO  MAKE   SALVATION   SURE 

Let  me  make  the  superstitions  of  a  nation  and  I  care  not  who  makes  its  laws 
or  its  songs  either. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

YES,  the  city  of  Benares  is  in  effect  just  a  big 
church,  a  religious  hive,  whose  every  cell  is  a 
temple,  a  shrine,  or  a  mosque,  and  whose  every 
conceivable  earthly  and  heavenly  good  is  procurable 
under  one  roof,  so  to  speak — a  sort  of  Army  and 
Navy  Stores,  theologically  stocked. 

I  will  make  out  a  little  itinerary  for  the  pilgrim; 
then  you  will  see  how  handy  the  system  is,  how 
convenient,  how  comprehensive.  If  you  go  to 
Benares  with  a  serious  desire  to  spiritually  benefit 
yourself,  you  will  find  it  valuable.  I  got  some  of 
the  facts  from  conversations  with  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Parker  and  the  others  from  his  Guide  to  Benares; 
they  are  therefore  trustworthy. 

1.  Purification.    At  sunrise  you  must  go  down  to 
the  Ganges  and  bathe,  pray,  and  drink  some  of  the 
water.    This  is  for  your  general  purification. 

2.  Protection  against  Hunger.     Next,   you  must 
fortify  yourself  against  the  sorrowful  earthly  ill  just 
named.    This  you  will  do  by  worshiping  for  a  mo 
ment  in  the  Cow  Temple.     By  the  door  of  it  you 
will  find  an  image  of  Ganesh,  son  of  Shiva;   it  has 
the  head  of  an  elephant  on  a  human  body;  its  face 

163 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  hands  are  of  silver.  You  will  worship  it  a  little, 
and  pass  on,  into  a  covered  veranda,  where  you  will 
find  devotees  reciting  from  the  sacred  books,  with 
the  help  of  instructors.  In  this  place  are  groups  of 
rude  and  dismal  idols.  You  may  contribute  some 
thing  for  their  support;  then  pass  into  the  temple, 
a  grim  and  stenchy  place,  for  it  is  populous  with 
sacred  cows  and  with  beggars.  You  will  give  some 
thing  to  the  beggars,  and  "reverently  kiss  the  tails" 
of  such  cows  as  pass  along,  for  these  cows  are 
peculiarly  holy,  and  this  act  of  worship  will  secure 
you  from  hunger  for  the  day. 

3.  "The  Poor  Man's  Friend."     You  will  next 
worship  this  god.    He  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  stone 
cistern  in  the  temple  of  Dalbhyeswar,  under  the 
shade  of  a  noble  peepul  tree  on  the  bluff  overlooking 
the  Ganges,   so  you  must  go  back  to  the  river. 
The  Poor  Man's  Friend  is  the  god  of  material  pros- 
perity  in  general,  and  the  god  of  the  rain  in  particular. 
You  will  secure  material  prosperity,   or  both,  by 
worshiping  him.     He  is  Shiva,  under  a  new  alias, 
and  he  abides  in  the  bottom  of  that  cistern  in  the 
form  of  a  stone  lingam.    You  pour  Ganges  water  over 
him  and  in  return  for  this  homage  you  get  the 
promised  benefits.    If  there  is  any  delay  about  the 
rain  you  must  pour  water  in  until  the  cistern  is 
full;  the  rain  will  then  be  sure  to  come. 

4.  Fever.     At  the  Kedar  Ghat  you  will  find  a 
long  flight  of  stone  steps  leading  down  to  the  river. 
Half-way  down  is  a  tank  filled  with  sewage.    Drink 
as  much  of  it  as  you  want.    It  is  for  fever. 

5.  Smallpox.    Go  straight  from  there  to  the  cen- 

164 


and  hands  < 
and  pa  • 
find  do 
the 


or  * 

ferity  in  ger 
Yor 


MA  TWAIN 

ill  worn  ittle, 

unda,  w>---  i  will 

sacred  books,  with 

place  are  groups  of 

ly  contribute  t 

ass  into  the  temple, 

it  is  populous  with 

You  will  give  some- 

rently  kiss  the  tails" 

iss  along,   for  these  cows  are 

and  this  act  of  worship  will  secure 

>r  the  day. 

•fs  Fric  i   will  next 

THE  \\ 


• 

trticular. 
y,  or  both,  by 


;va,  under  a  new  alias, 

and  L>ottom  of  that  cistern  in  the 

You  pour  Ganges  water  over 
ou  get 


long  flight  of  st( 
Half-way  down 
as  much  of  it  as  you 
Smallpox.    Go  s. 


nd  a 

aver. 

.    Drink 

or  fever. 

there  to  the  cen- 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

tral  Ghat.  At  its  up-stream  end  you  will  find  a  small 
whitewashed  building,  which  is  a  temple  sacred  to 
Sitala,  goddess  of  smallpox.  Her  understudy  is 
there — &  rude  human  figure  behind  a  brass  screen. 
You  will  worship  this  for  reasons  to  be  furnished 
presently. 

6.  The  Well  of  Fate.    For  certain  reasons  you  will 
next  go  and  do  homage  at  this  well.    You  will  find 
it  in  the  Dandpan  Temple,  in  the  city.    The  sunlight 
falls  into  it  from  a  square  hole  in  the  masonry  above. 
You  will  approach  it  with  awe,  for  your  life  is  now 
at  stake.    You  will  bend  over  and  look.    If  the  fates 
are  propitious,  you  will  see  your  face  pictured  in 
the  water  far  down  in  the  well.     If  matters  have 
been  otherwise  ordered,  a  sudden  cloud  will  mask  the 
sun  and  you  will  see  nothing.    This  means  that  you 
have  not  six  months  to  live.    If  you  are  already  at 
the  point  of  death,   your  circumstances  are  now 
serious.     There  is  no  time  to  lose.     Let  this  world 
go,  arrange  for  the  next  one.    Handily  situated,  at 
your  very  elbow,  is  opportunity  for  this.    You  turn 
and  worship  the  image  of  Maha  Kal,   the  Great 
Fate,  and  happiness  in  the  life  to  come  is  secured. 
If  there  is  breath  in  your  body  yet,  you  should  now 
make  an  effort  to  get  a  further  lease  of  the  present 
life.     You  have  a  chance.     There  is  a  chance  for 
everything  in  this  admirably  stocked  and  wonderf ully 
systemized  Spiritual  and  Temporal  Army  and  Navy 
Store.    You  must  get  yourself  carried  to  the 

7.  Well  of  Long  Life.    This  is  within  the  precincts 
of  the  moldering  and  venerable  Briddhkal  Temple, 
which  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  Benares.    You  pass  in 

165 


MARK  TWAIN 

by  a  stone  image  of  the  monkey  god,  Hanuman, 
and  there,  among  the  ruined  court-yards,  you  will 
find  a  shallow  pool  of  stagnant  sewage.  It  smells 
like  the  best  limburgher  cheese,  and  is  filthy  with  the 
washings  of  rotting  lepers,  but  that  is  nothing, 
bathe  in  it;  bathe  in  it  gratefully  and  worshipfully, 
for  this  is  the  Fountain  of  Youth;  these  are  the 
Waters  of  Long  Life.  Your  gray  hairs  will  disappear, 
and  with  them  your  wrinkles  and  your  rheumatism, 
the  burdens  of  care  and  the  weariness  of  age,  and 
you  will  come  out  young,  fresh,  elastic,  and  full  of 
eagerness  for  the  new  race  of  life.  Now  will  come 
flooding  upon  you  the  manifold  desires  that  haunt 
the  dear  dreams  of  the  morning  of  life.  You  will 
go  whither  you  will  find 

8.  Fulfilment  of  Desire.     To  wit,  to  the  Kame- 
shwar  Temple,  sacred  to  Shiva  as  the  Lord  of  De 
sires.    Arrange  for  yours  there.    And  if  you  like  to 
look  at  idols  among  the  pack  and  jam  of  temples, 
there  you  will  find  enough  to  stock  a  museum.    You 
will  begin  to  commit  sins  now  with  a  fresh,  new 
vivacity;   therefore,  it  will  be  well  to  go  frequently 
to  a  place  where  you  can  get 

9.  Temporary  Cleansing  from  Sin.    To  wit,  to  the 
Well  of  the  Earring.    You  must  approach  this  with 
the   profoundest   reverence,    for   it   is   unutterably 
sacred.     It  is,   indeed,   the  most  sacred  place  in 
Benares,  the  very  Holy  of  Holies,  in  the  estimation 
of  the  people.    It  is  a  railed  tank,  with  stone  stair 
ways  leading  down  to  the  water.    The  water  is  not 
clean.     Of  course  it  could  not  be,  for  people  are 
always  bathing  in  it.    As  long  as  you  choose  to  stand 

166 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

and  look,  you  will  see  the  files  of  sinners  descending 
and  ascending — descending  soiled  with  sin,  ascending 
purged  from  it.  "The  liar,  the  thief,  the  murderer, 
and  the  adulterer  may  here  wash  and  be  clean, " 
says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Parker,  in  his  book.  Very  well. 
I  know  Mr.  Parker,  and  I  believe  it;  but  if  anybody 
else  had  said  it,  I  should  consider  him  a  person  who 
had  better  go  down  in  the  tank  and  take  another 
wash.  The  god  Vishnu  dug  this  tank.  He  had 
nothing  to  dig  with  but  his  "discus."  I  do  not  know 
what  a  discus  is,  but  I  know  it  is  a  poor  thing  to 
dig  tanks  with,  because,  by  the  time  this  one  was 
finished,  it  was  full  of  sweat — Vishnu's  sweat.  He 
constructed  the  site  that  Benares  stands  on,  and 
afterward  built  the  globe  around  it,  and  thought 
nothing  of  it,  yet  sweated  like  that  over  a  little 
thing  like  this  tank.  One  of  these  statements  is 
doubtful.  I  do  not  know  which  one  it  is,  but  I  think 
it  difficult  not  to  believe  that  a  god  who  could  build 
a  world  around  Benares  would  not  be  intelligent 
enough  to  build  it  around  the  tank  too,  and  not  have 
to  dig  it.  Youth,  long  life,  temporary  purification 
from  sin,  salvation  through  propitiation  of  the  Great 
Fate — these  are  all  good.  But  you  must  do  some 
thing  more.  You  must 

10.  Make  Salvation  Sure.  There  are  several  ways. 
To  get  drowned  in  the  Ganges  is  one,  but  that  is 
not  pleasant.  To  die  within  the  limits  of  Benares  is 
another;  but  that  is  a  risky  one,  because  you  might 
be  out  of  town  when  your  time  came.  The  best 
one  of  all  is  the  Pilgrimage  Around  the  City.  You 
must  walk;  also,  you  must  go  barefoot.  The  tramp 

167 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  forty-four  miles,  for  the  road  winds  out  into  the 
country  a  piece,  and  you  will  be  marching  five  or 
six  days.  But  you  will  have  plenty  of  company. 
You  will  move  with  throngs  and  hosts  of  happy 
pilgrims  whose  radiant  costumes  will  make  the 
spectacle  beautiful  and  whose  glad  songs  and  holy 
paeans  of  triumph  will  banish  your  fatigues  and 
cheer  your  spirit;  and  at  intervals  there  will  be 
temples  where  you  may  sleep  and  be  refreshed  with 
food.  The  pilgrimage  completed,  you  have  pur 
chased  salvation,  and  paid  for  it.  But  you  may  not 
get  it  unless  you 

11.  Get  Your  Redemption  Recorded.    You  can  get 
this  done  at  the  Sakhi  Binayak  Temple,  and  it  is 
best  to  do  it,  for  otherwise  you  might  not  be  able 
to  prove  that  you  had  made  the  pilgrimage  in  case 
the  matter  should  some  day  come  to  be  disputed. 
That  temple  is  in  a  lane  back  of  the  Cow  Temple. 
Over  the  door  is  a  red  image  of  Ganesh  of  the  ele 
phant  head,  son  and  heir  of  Shiva,  and  Prince  of 
Wales  to  the  Theological  Monarchy,  so  to  speak. 
Within  is  a  god  whose  office  it  is  to  record  your 
pilgrimage  and  be  responsible  for  you.     You  will 
not  see  him,  but  you  will  see  a  Brahman  who  will 
attend  to  the  matter  and  take  the  money.     If  he 
should  forget  to  collect  the  money,  you  can  remind 
him.    He  knows  that  your  salvation  is  now  secure, 
but  of  course  you  would  like  to  know  it  yourself. 
You  have  nothing  to  do  but  go  and  pray,  and  pay 
at  the 

12.  Well  of  the  Knowledge  of  Salvation.     It  is 
close  to  the  Golden  Temple.     There  you  will  see, 

168 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

sculptured  out  of  a  single  piece  of  black  marble,  a 
bull  which  is  much  larger  than  any  living  bull  you 
have  ever  seen,  and  yet  is  not  a  good  likeness  after 
all.  And  there  also  you  will  see  a  very  uncommon 
thing — an  image  of  Shiva.  You  have  seen  his 
lingam  fifty  thousand  times  already,  but  this  is  Shiva 
himself,  and  said  to  be  a  good  likeness.  It  has 
three  eyes.  He  is  the  only  god  in  the  firm  that  has 
three.  "The  well  is  covered  by  a  fine  canopy  of 
stone  supported  by  forty  pillars,"  and  around  it  you 
will  find  what  you  have  already  seen  at  almost  every 
shrine  you  have  visited  in  Benares,  a  mob  of  devout 
and  eager  pilgrims.  The  sacred  water  is  being 
ladled  out  to  them;  with  it  comes  to  them  the 
knowledge,  clear,  thrilling,  absolute,  that  they  are 
saved;  and  you  can  see  by  their  faces  that  there  is 
one  happiness  in  this  world  which  is  supreme,  and 
to  which  no  other  joy  is  comparable.  You  receive 
your  water,  you  make  your  deposit,  and  now  what 
more  would  you  have?  Gold,  diamonds,  power, 
fame?  All  in  a  single  moment  these  things  have 
withered  to  dirt,  dust,  ashes.  The  world  has  nothing 
to  give  you  now.  For  you  it  is  bankrupt. 

I  do  not  claim  that  the  pilgrims  do  their  acts  of 
worship  in  the  order  and  sequence  above  charted 
out  in  this  Itinerary  of  mine,  but  I  think  logic  sug 
gests  that  they  ought  to  do  so.  Instead  of  a  helter- 
skelter  worship,  we  then  have  a  definite  starting- 
place,  and  a  march  which  carries  the  pilgrim  steadily 
forward  by  reasoned  and  logical  progression  to  a 
definite  goal.  Thus,  his  Ganges  bath  in  the  early 
morning  gives  him  an  appetite;  he  kisses  the  cow- 

169 


MARK    TWAIN 

tails,  and  that  removes  it.  It  is  now  business  hours, 
and  longings  for  material  prosperity  rise  in  his  mind, 
and  he  goes  and  pours  water  over  Shiva's  symbol; 
this  insures  the  prosperity,  but  also  brings  on  a 
rain,  which  gives  him  a  fever.  Then  he  drinks  the 
sewage  at  the  Kedar  Ghat  to  cure  the  fever;  it  cures 
the  fever  but  gives  him  the  smallpox.  He  wishes 
to  know  how  it  is  going  to  turn  out;  he  goes  to  the 
Dandpan  Temple  and  looks  down  the  well.  A 
clouded  sun  shows  him  that  death  is  near.  Logically, 
his  best  course  for  the  present,  since  he  cannot  tell 
at  what  moment  he  may  die,  is  to  secure  a  happy 
hereafter;  this  he  does,  through  the  agency  of  the 
Great  Fate.  He  is  safe,  now,  for  heaven;  his  next 
move  will  naturally  be  to  keep  out  of  it  as  long  as 
he  can.  Therefore  he  goes  to  the  Briddhkal  Temple 
and  secures  Youth  and  long  life  by  bathing  in  a 
puddle  of  leper-pus  which  would  kill  a  microbe. 
Logically,  Youth  has  re-equipped  him  for  sin  and 
with  a  disposition  to  commit  it;  he  will  naturally 
go  to  the  fane  which  is  consecrated  to  the  Fulfil 
ment  of  Desires,  and  make  arrangements.  Logically, 
he  will  now  go  to  the  Well  of  the  Earring  from  time 
to  time  to  unload  and  freshen  up  for  further  banned 
enjoyments.  But  first  and  last  and  all  the  time  he 
is  human,  and  therefore  in  his  reflective  intervals 
he  will  always  be  speculating  in  "futures."  He  will 
make  the  Great  Pilgrimage  around  the  city  and 
so  make  his  salvation  absolutely  sure;  he  will  also 
have  record  made  of  it,  so  that  it  may  remain 
absolutely  sure  and  not  be  forgotten  or  repudiated 
in  the  confusion  of  the  Final  Settlement.  Logically, 

170 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

also,  he  will  wish  to  have  satisfying  and  tranquiliz- 
ing  personal  knowledge  that  that  salvation  is  secure; 
therefore  he  goes  to  the  Well  of  the  Knowledge  of 
vSalvation,  adds  that  completing  detail,  and  then 
goes  about  his  affairs  serene  and  content;  serene 
and  content,  for  he  is  now  royally  endowed  with  an 
advantage  which  no  religion  in  this  world  could  give 
him  but  his  own;  for  henceforth  he  may  commit  as 
many  million  sins  as  he  wants  to  and  nothing  can 
come  of  it. 

Thus  the  system,  properly  and  logically  ordered, 
is  neat,  compact,  clearly  defined,  and  covers  the 
whole  ground.  I  desire  to  recommend  it  to  such  as 
find  the  other  systems  too  difficult,  exacting,  and 
irksome  for  the  uses  of  this  fretful  brief  life  of  ours. 

However,  let  me  not  deceive  any  one.  My 
Itinerary  lacks  a  detail.  I  must  put  it  in.  The 
truth  is,  that  after  the  pilgrim  has  faithfully  followed 
the  requirements  of  the  Itinerary  through  to  the  end 
and  has  secured  his  salvation  and  also  the  personal 
knowledge  of  that  fact,  there  is  still  an  accident 
possible  to  him  which  can  annul  the  whole  thing. 
If  he  should  ever  cross  to  the  other  side  of  the 
Ganges  and  get  caught  out  and  die  there  he  would 
at  once  come  to  life  again  in  the  form  of  an  ass. 
Think  of  that,  after  all  this  trouble  and  expense. 
You  see  how  capricious  and  uncertain  salvation  is 
there.  The  Hindu  has  a  childish  and  unreasoning 
aversion  to  being  turned  into  an  ass.  It  is  hard  to 
tell  why.  One  could  properly  expect  an  ass  to  have 
an  aversion  to  being  turned  into  a  Hindu.  One 
could  understand  that  he  could  lose  dignity  by  it; 

171 


MARK    TW|AIN 

also  self-respect,  and  nine-tenths  of  his  intelligence. 
But  the  Hindu  changed  into  an  ass  wouldn't  lose 
anything,  unless  you  count  his  religion.  And  he 
would  gain  much — release  from  his  slavery  to  two 
million  gods  and  twenty  million  priests,  fakirs,  holy 
mendicants,  and  other  sacred  bacilli;  he  would 
escape  the  Hindu  hell;  he  would  also  escape  the 
Hindu  heaven.  These  are  advantages  which  the 
Hindu  ought  to  consider;  then  he  would  go  over 
and  die  on  the  other  side. 

Benares  is  a  religious  Vesuvius.  In  its  bowels  the 
theological  forces  have  been  heaving  and  tossing, 
rumbling,  thundering,  and  quaking,  boiling,  and  wel 
tering  and  flaming  and  smoking  for  ages.  But  a 
little  group  of  missionaries  have  taken  post  at  its 
base,  and  they  have  hopes.  There  are  the  Baptist 
Missionary  Society,  the  Church  Missionary  Society, 
the  London  Missionary  Society,  the  Wesleyan  Mis 
sionary  Society,  and  the  Zenana  Bible  and  Medical 
Mission.  They  have  schools,  and  the  principal  work 
seems  to  be  among  the  children.  And  no  doubt 
that  part  of  the  work  prospers  best,  for  grown 
people  everywhere  are  always  likely  to  cling  to  the 
religion  they  were  brought  up  in. 


172 


CHAPTER  XVI 

GANGES,  THE  GREAT  PURIFIER 

Wrinkles  should  merely  Indicate  where  smUes  have  been. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

TN  one  of  those  Benares  temples  we  saw  a  devotee 
1  working  for  salvation  in  a  curious  way.  He  had 
a  huge  wad  of  clay  beside  him  and  was  making  it 
up  into  little  wee  gods  no  bigger  than  carpet-tacks. 
He  stuck  a  grain  of  rice  into  each — to  represent 
the  lingam,  I  think.  He  turned  them  out  nimbly, 
for  he  had  had  long  practice  and  had  acquired  great 
facility.  Every  day  he  made  two  thousand  gods, 
then  threw  them  into  the  holy  Ganges.  This  act  of 
homage  brought  him  the  profound  homage  of  the 
pious — also  their  coppers.  He  had  a  sure  living  here, 
and  was  earning  a  high  place  in  the  hereafter. 

The  Ganges  front  is  the  supreme  show-place  of 
Benares.  Its  tall  bluffs  are  solidly  caked  from  water 
to  summit,  along  a  stretch  of  three  miles,  with  a 
splendid  jumble  of  massive  and  picturesque  masonry, 
a  bewildering  and  beautiful  confusion  of  stone  plat 
forms,  temples,  stair-flights,  rich  and  stately  palaces 
— nowhere  a  break,  nowhere  a  glimpse  of  the  bluff 
itself;  all  the  long  face  of  it  is  compactly  walled 
from  sight  by  this  crammed  perspective  of  plat 
forms,  soaring  stairways,  sculptured  temples,  majes 
tic  palaces,  softening  away  into  the  distances;  and 


MARK    TWAIN 

there  is  movement,  motion,  human  life  everywhere, 
and  brilliantly  costumed — streaming  in  rainbows  up 
and  down  the  lofty  stairways,  and  massed  in  meta 
phorical  flower-gardens  on  the  miles  of  great  plat 
forms  at  the  river's  edge. 

All  this  masonry,  all  this  architecture  represents 
piety.  The  palaces  were  built  by  native  princes 
whose  homes,  as  a  rule,  are  far  from  Benares,  but 
who  go  there  from  time  to  time  to  refresh  their  souls 
with  the  sight  and  touch  of  the  Ganges,  the  river  of 
their  idolatry.  The  stairways  are  records  of  acts  of 
piety;  the  crowd  of  costly  little  temples  are  tokens 
of  money  spent  by  rich  men  for  present  credit  and 
hope  of  future  reward.  Apparently,  the  rich  Chris 
tian  who  spends  large  sums  upon  his  religion  is  con 
spicuous  with  us,  by  his  rarity,  but  the  rich  Hindu 
who  doesn't  spend  large  sums  upon  his  religion  is 
seemingly  non-existent.  With  us  the  poor  spend 
money  on  their  religion,  but  they  keep  back  some 
to  live  on.  Apparently,  in  India,  the  poor  bankrupt 
themselves  daily  for  their  religion.  The  rich  Hindu 
can  afford  his  pious  outlays;  he  gets  much  glory  for 
his  spendings,  yet  keeps  back  a  sufficiency  of  his 
income  for  temporal  purposes;  but  the  poor  Hindu 
is  entitled  to  compassion,  for  his  spendings  keep  him 
poor,  yet  get  him  no  glory. 

We  made  the  usual  trip  up  and  down  the  river, 
seated  in  chairs  under  an  awning  on  the  deck  of  the 
usual  commodious  hand-propelled  ark;  made  it  two 
or  three  times,  and  could  have  made  it  with  increas 
ing  interest  and  enjoyment  many  times  more;  for, 
of  course,  the  palaces  and*  temples  would  grow  more 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

and  more  beautiful  every  time  one  saw  them,  for 
that  happens  with  all  such  things;  also,  I  think 
one  would  not  get  tired  of  the  bathers,  nor  their 
costumes,  nor  of  their  ingenuities  in  getting  out  of 
them  and  into  them  again  without  exposing  too 
much  bronze,  nor  of  their  devotional  gesticulations 
and  absorbed  bead-tellings. 

But  I  should  get  tired  of  seeing  them  wash  their 
mouths  with  that  dreadful  water  and  drink  it.  In 
fact,  I  did  get  tired  of  it,  and  very  early,  too.  At 
one  place  where  we  halted  for  a  while,  the  foul  gush 
from  a  sewer  was  making  the  water  turbid  and  murky 
all  around,  and  there  was  a  random  corpse  slopping 
around  in  it  that  had  floated  down  from  up  country. 
Ten  steps  below  that  place  stood  a  crowd  of  men, 
women,  and  comely  young  maidens  waist-deep  in 
the  water — and  they  were  scooping  it  up  in  their 
hands  and  drinking  it.  Faith  can  certainly  do  won 
ders,  and  this  is  an  instance  of  it.  Those  people  were 
not  drinking  that  fearful  stuff  to  assuage  thirst, 
but  in  order  to  purify  their  souls  and  the  interior  of 
their  bodies.  According  to  their  creed,  the  Ganges 
water  makes  everything  pure  that  it  touches — in 
stantly  and  utterly  pure.  The  sewer-water  was  not 
an  offense  to  them,  the  corpse  did  not  revolt  them; 
the  sacred  water  had  touched  both,  and  both  were 
now  snow-pure,  and  could  defile  no  one.  The 
memory  of  that  sight  will  always  stay  by  me;  but 
not  by  request. 

A  word  further  concerning  the  nasty  but  all- 
purifying  Ganges  water.  When  we  went  to  Agra, 
by  and  by,  we  happened  there  just  in  time  to  be  in 

i7S 


MARK    TWAIN 

at  the  birth  of  a  marvel — a  memorable  scientific 
discovery — the  discovery  that  in  certain  ways  the 
foul  and  derided  Ganges  water  is  the  most  puissant 
purifier  in  the  world!  This  curious  fact,  as  I  have 
said,  had  just  been  added  to  the  treasury  of  modern 
science.  It  had  long  been  noted  as  a  strange  thing 
that  while  Benares  is  often  afflicted  with  the  cholera 
she  does  not  spread  it  beyond  her  borders.  This 
could  not  be  accounted  for.  Mr.  Henkin,  the  scien 
tist  in  the  employ  of  the  government  of  Agra,  con 
cluded  to  examine  the  water.  He  went  to  Benares 
and  made  his  tests.  He  got  water  at  the  mouths 
of  the  sewers  where  they  empty  into  the  river  at 
the  bathing-ghats;  a  cubic  centimeter  of  it  contained 
millions  of  germs;  at  the  end  of  six  hours  they  were 
all  dead.  He  caught  a  floating  corpse,  towed  it  to 
the  shore,  and  from  beside  it  he  dipped  up  water  that 
was  swarming  with  cholera  germs;  at  the  end  of 
six  hours  they  were  all  dead.  He  added  swarm  after 
swarm  of  cholera  germs  to  this  water;  within  the 
six  hours  they  always  died,  to  the  last  sample. 
Repeatedly,  he  took  pure  well-water  which  was 
barren  of  animal  life,  and  put  into  it  a  few  cholera 
germs;  they  always  began  to  propagate  at  once, 
and  always  within  six  hours  they  swarmed — ancl 
were  numerable  by  millions  upon  millions. 

For  ages  and  ages  the  Hindus  have  had  absolute 
faith  that  the  water  of  the  Ganges  was  absolutely 
pure,  could  not  be  defiled  by  any  contact  whatsoever, 
and  infallibly  made  pure  and  clean  whatsoever  thing 
touched  it.  They  still  believe  it,  and  that  is  why 
they  bathe  in  it  and  drink  it,  caring  nothing  for  its 

176 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

seeming  filthiness  and  the  floating  corpses.  The 
Hindus  have  been  laughed  at,  these  many  genera 
tions,  but  the  laughter  will  need  to  modify  itself  a 
little  from  now  on.  How  did  they  find  out  the 
water's  secret  in  those  ancient  ages?  Had  they 
germ-scientists  then?  We  do  not  know.  We  only 
know  that  they  had  a  civilization  long  before  we 
emerged  from  savagery.  But  to  return  to  where  I 
was  before;  I  was  about  to  speak  of  the  burning- 
ghat. 

They  do  not  burn  fakirs — those  revered  mendi 
cants.  They  are  so  holy  that  they  can  get  to  their 
place  without  that  sacrament,  provided  they  be  con 
signed  to  the  consecrating  river.  We  saw  one  car 
ried  to  mid-stream  and  thrown  overboard.  He  was 
sandwiched  between  two  great  slabs  of  stone. 

We  lay  off  the  cremation-ghat  half  an  hour  and 
saw  nine  corpses  burned.  I  should  not  wish  to  see 
any  more  of  it,  unless  I  might  select  the  parties. 
The  mourners  follow  the  bier  through  the  town  and 
down  to  the  ghat;  then  the  bier-bearers  deliver  the 
body  to  some  low-caste  natives — Doms — and  the 
mourners  turn  about  and  go  back  home.  I  heard 
|LO  crying  and  saw  no  tears,  there  was  no  ceremony 
of  parting.  Apparently,  these  expressions  of  grief 
and  affection  are  reserved  for  the  privacy  of  the 
home.  The  dead  women  came  draped  in  red,  the 
men  in  white.  They  are  laid  in  the  water  at  the 
river's  edge  while  the  pyre  is  being  prepared. 

The  first  subject  was  a  man.  When  the  Doms 
unswathed  him  to  wash  him,  he  proved  to  be  a 
sturdily  built,  well-nourished,  and  handsome  old 
ii.— 12  I77 


MARK    TWAIN 

gentleman,  with  not  a  sign  about  him  to  suggest 
that  he  had  ever  been  ill.  Dry  wood  was  brought 
and  built  up  into  a  loose  pile;  the  corpse  was  laid 
upon  it  and  covered  over  with  fuel.  Then  a  naked 
holy  man  who  was  sitting  on  high  ground  a  little 
distance  away  began  to  talk  and  shout  with  great 
energy,  and  he  kept  up  this  noise  right  along.  It 
may  have  been  the  funeral  sermon,  and  probably 
was.  I  forgot  to  say  that  one  of  the  mourners 
remained  behind  when  the  others  went  away.  This 
was  the  dead  man's  son,  a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve, 
brown  and  handsome,  grave  and  self-possessed,  and 
clothed  in  flowing  white.  He  was  there  to  burn  his 
father.  He  was  given  a  torch,  and  while  he  slowly 
walked  seven  times  around  the  pyre  the  naked  black 
man  on  the  high  ground  poured  out  his  sermon  more 
clamorously  than  ever.  The  seventh  circuit  com 
pleted,  the  boy  applied  the  torch  at  his  father's 
head,  then  at  his  feet;  the  flames  sprang  briskly  up 
with  a  sharp  crackling  noise,  and  the  lad  went  away. 
Hindus  do  not  want  daughters,  because  their  wed 
dings  make  such  a  ruinous  expense;  but  they  want 
sons,  so  that  at  death  they  may  have  honorable  exit 
from  the  world;  and  there  is  no  honor  equal  to  the 
honor  of  having  one's  pyre  lighted  by  one's  son. 
The  father  who  dies  sonless  is  in  a  grievous  situa 
tion  indeed,  and  is  pitied.  Life  being  uncertain,  the 
Hindu  marries  while  he  is  still  a  boy,  in  the  hope 
that  he  will  have  a  son  ready  when  the  day  of  his 
need  shall  come.  But  if  he  have  no  son,  he  will 
adopt  one.  This  answers  every  purpose. 

Meantime,   the   corpse  is  burning,   also   several 

178 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

others.  It  is  a  dismal  business.  The  stokers  did 
not  sit  down  in  idleness,  but  moved  briskly  about, 
punching  up  the  fires  with  long  poles,  and  now  and 
then  adding  fuel.  Sometimes  they  hoisted  the  half 
of  a  skeleton  into  the  air,  then  slammed  it  down 
and  beat  it  with  the  pole,  breaking  it  up  so  that  it 
would  burn  better.  They  hoisted  skulls  up  in  the 
same  way  and  banged  and  battered  them.  The 
sight  was  hard  to  bear;  it  would  have  been  harder 
if  the  mourners  had  stayed  to  witness  it.  I  had  but 
a  moderate  desire  to  see  a  cremation,  so  it  was  soon 
satisfied.  For  sanitary  reasons  it  would  be  well  if 
cremation  were  universal ;  but  this  form  is  revolting, 
and  not  to  be  recommended. 

The  fire  used  is  sacred,  of  course — for  there  is 
money  in  it.  Ordinary  fire  is  forbidden;  there  is 
no  money  in  it.  I  was  told  that  this  sacred  fire  is 
all  furnished  by  one  person,  and  that  he  has  a 
monopoly  of  it  and  charges  a  good  price  for  it. 
Sometimes  a  rich  mourner  pays  a  thousand  rupees 
for  it.  To  get  to  paradise  from  India  is  an  expensive 
thing.  Every  detail  connected  with  the  matter  costs 
something,  and  helps  to  fatten  a  priest.  I  suppose 
it  is  quite  safe  to  conclude  that  that  fire-bug  is  in 
holy  orders. 

Close  to  the  cremation-ground  stand  a  few  time- 
worn  stones  which  are  remembrances  of  the  Suttee. 
Each  has  a  rough  carving  upon  it,  representing  a  man 
and  a  woman  standing  or  walking  hand  in  hand,  and 
marks  the  spot  where  a  widow  went  to  her  death  by 
fire  in  the  days  when  the  suttee  flourished.  Mr. 
Parker  said  that  widows  would  burn  themselves  now 

179 


MARK    TWAIN 

if  the  government  would  allow  it.  The  family  that 
can  point  to  one  of  these  little  memorials  and  say, 
"She  who  burned  herself  there  was  an  ancestress  of 
ours,"  is  envied. 

It  is  a  curious  people.  With  them,  all  life  seems 
to  be  sacred,  except  human  life.  Even  the  life  of 
vermin  is  sacred,  and  must  not  be  taken.  The  good 
Jain  wipes  off  a  seat  before  using  it,  lest  he  cause 
the  death  of  some  valueless  insect  by  sitting  down 
on  it.  It  grieves  him  to  have  to  drink  water,  because 
the  provisions  in  his  stomach  may  not  agree  with 
the  microbes.  Yet  India  invented  Thuggery  and  the 
Suttee.  India  is  a  hard  country  to  understand. 

We  went  to  the  temple  of  the  Thug  goddess, 
Bhowanee,  or  Kali,  or  Durga.  She  has  these  names 
and  others.  She  is  the  only  god  to  whom  living 
sacrifices  are  made.  Goats  are  sacrificed  to  her. 
Monkeys  would  be  cheaper.  There  are  plenty  of 
them  about  the  place.  Being  sacred,  they  make 
themselves  very  free,  and  scramble  around  wherever 
they  please.  The  temple  and  its  porch  are  beautifully 
carved,  but  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  idol.  Bho 
wanee  is  not  pleasant  to  look  at.  She  has  a  silver 
face,  and  tongue  painted  a  deep  red.  She  wears  a 
necklace  of  skulls. 

In  fact,  none  of  the  idols  in  Benares  are  hand 
some  or  attractive.  And  what  a  swarm  of  them  there 
is!  The  town  is  a  vast  museum  of  idols — and  all 
of  them  crude,  misshapen,  and  ugly.  They  flock 
through  one's  dreams  at  night,  a  wild  mob  of  night 
mares.  When  you  get  tired  of  them  in  the  temples 
and  take  a  trip  on  the  river,  you  find  idol  giants, 

180 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

flashily  painted,  stretched  out  side  by  side  on  the 
shore.  And  apparently  wherever  there  is  room  for 
one  more  lingam,  a  lingam  is  there.  If  Vishnu  had 
foreseen  what  his  town  was  going  to  be,  he  would 
have  called  it  Idolville  or  Lingamburg. 

The  most  conspicuous  feature  of  Benares  is  the 
pair  of  slender  white  minarets  which  tower  like 
masts  from  the  great  Mosque  of  Aurangzeb.  They 
seem  to  be  always  in  sight,  from  everywhere,  those 
airy,  graceful,  inspiring  things.  But  masts  is  not 
the  right  word,  for  masts  have  a  perceptible  taper, 
while  these  minarets  have  not.  They  are  142  feet 
high,  and  only  8^2  feet  in  diameter  at  the  base,  and 
7^  at  the  summit — scarcely  any  taper  at  all. 
These  are  the  proportions  of  a  candle;  and  fair  and 
fairylike  candles  these  are.  Will  be,  anyway,  some 
day,  when  the  Christians  inherit  them  and  top  them 
with  the  electric  light.  There  is  a  great  view  from 
up  there — a  wonderful  view.  A  large  gray  monkey 
was  part  of  it,  and  damaged  it.  A  monkey  has  no 
judgment.  This  one  was  skipping  about  the  upper 
great  heights  of  the  mosque — skipping  across  empty 
yawning  intervals  which  were  almost  too  wide  for 
him,  and  which  he  only  just  barely  cleared,  each 
time,  by  the  skin  of  his  teeth.  He  got  me  so  nervous 
that  I  couldn't  look  at  the  view.  I  couldn't  look 
at  anything  but  him.  Every  time  he  went  sailing 
over  one  of  those  abysses  my  breath  stood  still, 
and  when  he  grabbed  for  the  perch  he  was  going 
for,  I  grabbed  too,  in  sympathy.  And  he  was  per 
fectly  indifferent,  perfectly  unconcerned,  and  I  did 
all  the  panting  myself.  He  came  within  an  ace  of 

181 


MARK    TWAIN 

losing  his  life  a  dozen  times,  and  I  was  so  troubled 
about  him  that  I  would  have  shot  him  if  I  had  had 
anything  to  do  it  with.  But  I  strongly  recommend 
the  view.  There  is  more  monkey  than  view,  and 
there  is  always  going  to  be  more  monkey  while  that 
idiot  survives,  but  what  view  you  get  is  superb.  All 
Benares,  the  river,  and  the  region  round  about  are 
spread  before  you.  Take  a  gun,  and  look  at  the 
view. 

The  next  thing  I  saw  was  more  reposeful.  It 
was  a  new  kind  of  art.  It  was  a  picture  painted  on 
water.  It  was  done  by  a  native.  He  sprinkled  fine 
dust  of  various  colors  on  the  still  surface  of  a  basin 
of  water,  and  out  of  these  sprinklings  a  dainty  and 
pretty  picture  gradually  grew,  a  picture  which  a 
breath  could  destroy.  Somehow  it  was  impressive, 
after  so  much  browsing  among  massive  and  battered 
and  decaying  fanes  that  rest  upon  ruins,  and  those 
ruins  upon  still  other  ruins,  and  those  upon  still 
others  again.  It  was  a  sermon,  an  allegory,  a  symbol 
of  Instability.  Those  creations  in  stone  were  only 
a  kind  of  water  pictures,  after  all. 

A  prominent  episode  in  the  Indian  career  of 
Warren  Hastings  had  Benares  for  its  theater.  Wher 
ever  that  extraordinary  man  set  his  foot,  he  left  his 
mark.  He  came  to  Benares  in  1781  to  collect  a  fine 
of  five  hundred  thousand  pounds  which  he  had  levied 
upon  its  Raja,  Cheit  Singh,  on  behalf  of  the  East 
India  Company.  Hastings  was  a  long  way  from  home 
and  help.  There  were,  probably,  not  a  dozen  Eng 
lishmen  within  reach;  the  Raja  was  in  his  fort  with 
his  myriads  around  him.  But  no  matter.  From 

182 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

his  little  camp  in  a  neighboring  garden,  Hastings 
sent  a  party  to  arrest  the  sovereign.  He  sent  on  this 
daring  mission  a  couple  of  hundred  native  soldiers — 
sepoys — under  command  of  three  young  English 
lieutenants.  The  Raja  submitted  without  a  word. 
The  incident  lights  up  the  Indian  situation  electric 
ally,  and  gives  one  a  vivid  sense  of  the  strides  which 
the  English  had  made  and  the  mastership  they  had 
acquired  in  the  land  since  the  date  of  Clive's  great 
victory.  In  a  quarter  of  a  century,  from  being  no 
bodies,  and  feared  by  none,  they  were  become 
confessed  lords  and  masters,  feared  by  all,  sovereigns 
included,  and  served  by  all,  sovereigns  included.  It 
makes  the  fairy  tales  sound  true.  The  English  had 
not  been  afraid  to  enlist  native  soldiers  to  fight 
against  their  own  people  and  keep  them  obedient. 
And  now  Hastings  was  not  afraid  to  come  away 
out  to  this  remote  place  with  a  handful  of  such 
soldiers  and  send  them  to  arrest  a  native  sovereign. 
The  lieutenants  imprisoned  the  Raja  in  his  own 
fort.  It  was  beautiful,  the  pluckiness  of  it,  the 
impudence  of  it.  The  arrest  enraged  the  Raja's 
people,  and  all  Benares  came  storming  about  the 
place  and  threatening  vengeance.  And  yet,  but  for 
an  accident,  nothing  important  would  have  resulted, 
perhaps.  The  mob  found  out  a  most  strange  thing, 
an  almost  incredible  thing — that  this  handful  of 
soldiers  had  come  on  this  hardy  errand  with  empty 
guns  and  no  ammunition.  This  has  been  attributed 
to  thoughtlessness,  but  it  could  hardly  have  been 
that,  for  in  such  large  emergencies  as  this,  intelligent 
people  do  think.  It  must  have  been  indifference,  an 


MARK    TWAIN 

over-confidence  born  of  the  proved  submissiveness  of 
the  native  character,  when  confronted  by  even  one  or 
two  stern  Britons  in  their  war-paint.  But,  however 
that  may  be,  it  was  a  fatal  discovery  that  the  mob 
had  made.  They  were  full  of  courage  now,  and 
they  broke  into  the  fort  and  massacred  the  helpless 
soldiers  and  their  officers.  Hastings  escaped  from 
Benares  by  night  and  got  safely  away,  leaving  the 
principality  in  a  state  of  wild  insurrection:  but  he 
was  back  again  within  the  month,  and  quieted  it 
down  in  his  prompt  and  virile  way,  and  took  the 
Raja's  throne  away  from  him  and  gave  it  to 
another  man.  He  was  a  capable  kind  of  person 
was  Warren  Hastings.  This  was  the  only  time  he 
was  ever  out  of  ammunition.  Some  of  his  acts  have 
left  stains  upon  his  name  which  can  never  be  washed 
away,  but  he  saved  to  England  the  Indian  Empire, 
and  that  was  the  best  service  that  was  ever  done  to 
the  Indians  themselves,  those  wretched  heirs  of  a 
hundred  centuries  of  pitiless  oppression  and  abuse. 


184 


CHAPTER  XVII 

MERRYMAKING  IN  THE  TAJ  MAHAL 

True  irreverence  is  disrespect  for  another  man's  god. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

IT  was  in  Benares  that  I  saw  another  living  god. 
That  makes  two.    I  believe  I  have  seen  most  of 
the  greater  and  lesser  wonders  of  the  world,  but  I 
do  not  remember  that  any  of  them  interested  me  so 
overwhelmingly  as  did  that  pair  of  gods. 

When  I  try  to  account  for  this  effect  I  find  no 
difficulty  about  it.  I  find  that,  as  a  rule,  when  a 
thing  is  a  wonder  to  us  it  is  not  because  of  what  we 
see  in  it,  but  because  of  what  others  have  seen  in  it. 
We  get  almost  all  our  wonders  at  second  hand.  We 
are  eager  to  see  any  celebrated  thing — and  we  never 
fail  of  our  reward;  just  the  deep  privilege  of  gazing 
upon  an  object  which  has  stirred  the  enthusiasm 
or  evoked  the  reverence  or  affection  or  admiration 
of  multitudes  of  our  race  is  a  thing  which  we  value; 
we  are  profoundly  glad  that  we  have  seen  it,  we  are 
permanently  enriched  from  having  seen  it,  we  would 
not  part  with  the  memory  of  that  experience  for  a 
great  price.  And  yet  that  very  spectacle  may  be 
the  Taj.  You  cannot  keep  your  enthusiasms  down, 
you  cannot  keep  your  emotions  within  bounds  when 
that  soaring  bubble  of  marble  breaks  upon  your 
view.  But  these  are  not  your  enthusiasms  and 

185   ' 


MARK    TWAIN 

emotions — they  are  the  accumulated  emotions  and 
enthusiasms  of  a  thousand  fervid  writers,  who  have 
been  slowly  and  steadily  storing  them  up  in  your 
heart  day  by  day  and  year  by  year  all  your  life; 
and  now  they  burst  out  in  a  flood  and  overwhelm 
you;  and  you  could  not  be  a  whit  happier  if  they 
were  your  very  own.  By  and  by  you  sober  down, 
and  then  you  perceive  that  you  have  been  drunk  on 
the  smell  of  somebody  else's  cork.  For  ever  and 
ever  the  memory  of  my  distant  first  glimpse  of  the 
Taj  will  compensate  me  for  creeping  around  the 
globe  to  have  that  great  privilege. 

But  the  Taj — with  all  your  inflation  of  delusive 
emotions,  acquired  at  second  hand  from  people  to 
whom  in  the  majority  of  cases  they  were  also  delu 
sions  acquired  at  second  hand — a  thing  which  you 
fortunately  did  not  think  of  or  it  might  have  made 
you  doubtful  of  what  you  imagined  were  your  own 
— what  is  the  Taj  as  a  marvel,  a  spectacle,  and  an 
uplifting  and  overpowering  wonder,  compared  with 
a  living,  breathing,  speaking  personage  whom  several 
millions  of  human  beings  devoutly  and  sincerely  and 
unquestioningly  believe  to  be  a  god,  and  humbly 
and  gratefully  worship  as  a  god? 

He  was  sixty  years  old  when  I  saw  him.  He  is 
called  Sri  108  Swami  Bhaskarananda  Saraswati. 
That  is  one  form  of  it.  I  think  that  that  is  what 
you  would  call  him  in  speaking  to  him — because  it 
is  short.  But  you  would  use  more  of  his  name  in 
addressing  a  letter  to  him;  courtesy  would  require 
this.  Even  then  you  would  not  have  to  use  all  of 
it,  but  only  this  much: 

186 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

Sri  108  Matparamakansaparimajakacharyaswam- 
ibhaskaranandasaraswati. 

You  do  not  put  "Esq."  after  it,  for  that  is  not 
necessary.  The  word  which  opens  the  volley  is 
itself  a  title  of  honor— "Sri."  The  "  108  "  stands  for 
the  rest  of  his  names,  I  believe.  Vishnu  has  108 
names  which  he  does  not  use  in  business,  and  no 
doubt  it  is  a  custom  of  gods  and  a  privilege  sacred 
to  their  order  to  keep  108  extra  ones  in  stock. 
Just  the  restricted  name  set  down  above  is  a  hand 
some  property,  without  the  108.  By  my  count  it 
has  fifty-eight  letters  in  it.  This  removes  the  long 
German  words  from  competition;  they  are  perma 
nently  out  of  the  race. 

Sri  1 08  S.  B.  Saraswati  has  attained  to  what 
among  the  Hindus  is  called  the  "state  of  perfec 
tion."  It  is  a  state  which  other  Hindus  reach  by 
being  born  again  and  again,  and  over  and  over  again 
into  this  world,  through  one  reincarnation  after 
another — a  tiresome  long  job  covering  centuries  and 
decades  of  centuries,  and  one  that  is  full  of  risks, 
too,  like  the  accident  of  dying  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  Ganges  some  time  or  other  and  waking  up 
in  the  form  of  an  ass,  with  a  fresh  start  necessary 
and  the  numerous  trips  to  be  made  all  over  again. 
But  in  reaching  perfection,  Sri  108  S.  B.  S.  has 
escaped  all  that.  He  is  no  longer  a  part  or  a  feature 
of  this  world;  his  substance  has  changed,  all  earthi- 
ness  has  departed  out  of  it;  he  is  utterly  holy, 
utterly  pure;  nothing  can  desecrate  this  holiness 
or  stain  this  purity;  he  is  no  longer  of  the  earth, 
its  concerns  are  matters  foreign  to  him,  its  pains 

187 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  griefs  and  troubles  cannot  reach  him.  When  he 
dies,  Nirvana  is  his ;  he  will  be  absorbed  into  the  sub 
stance  of  the  Supreme  Deity  and  be  at  peace  forever. 

The  Hindu  Scriptures  point  out  how  this  state  is 
to  be  reached,  but  it  is  only  once  in  a  thousand 
years,  perhaps,  that  a  candidate  accomplishes  it. 
This  one  has  traversed  the  course  required,  stage 
by  stage,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  now 
has  nothing  left  to  do  but  wait  for  the  call  which 
shall  release  him  from  a  world  in  which  he  has  now 
no  part  nor  lot.  First,  he  passed  through  the 
student  stage,  and  became  learned  in  the  holy  books. 
Next  he  became  citizen,  householder,  husband,  and 
father.  That  was  the  required  second  stage.  Then — 
like  John  Bunyan's  Christian — he  bade  perpetual 
good-by  to  his  family,  as  required,  and  went  wander 
ing  away.  He  went  far  into  the  desert  and  served 
a  term  as  hermit.  Next,  he  became  a  beggar,  "in 
accordance  with  the  rites  laid  down  in  the  Scrip 
tures,"  and  wandered  about  India  eating  the  bread 
of  mendicancy.  A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  he 
reached  the  stage  of  purity.  This  needs  no  garment ; 
its  symbol  is  nudity;  he  discarded  the  waist-cloth 
which  he  had  previously  worn.  He  could  resume 
it  now  if  he  chose,  for  neither  that  nor  any  other 
contact  can  defile  him;  but  he  does  not  choose. 

There  are  several  other  stages,  I  believe,  but  I  do 
not  remember  what  they  are.  But  he  has  been 
through  them.  Throughout  the  long  course  he  was 
perfecting  himself  in  holy  learning,  and  writing 
commentaries  upon  the  sacred  books.  He  was  also 
meditating  upon  Brahma,  and  he  does  that  -now. 

188 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

White  marble  relief -portraits  of  him  are  sold  all 
about  India.  He  lives  in  a  good  house  in  a  noble 
great  garden  in  Benares,  all  meet  and  proper  to  his 
stupendous  rank.  Necessarily,  he  does  not  go  abroad 
in  the  streets.  Deities  would  never  be  able  to  move 
about  handily  in  any  country.  If  one  whom  we 
recognized  and  adored  as  a  god  should  go  abroad 
in  our  streets,  and  the  day  it  was  to  happen  were 
known,  all  traffic  would  be  blocked  and  business 
would  come  to  a  standstill. 

This  god  is  comfortably  housed,  and  yet  modestly, 
all  things  considered,  for  if  he  wanted  to  live  in  a 
palace  he  would  only  need  to  speak  and  his  worship 
ers  would  gladly  build  it.  Sometimes  he  sees  devo 
tees  for  a  moment,  and  comforts  them  and  blesses 
them,  and  they  kiss  his  feet  and  go  away  happy. 
Rank  is  nothing  to  him,  he  being  a  god.  To  him 
all  men  are  alike.  He  sees  whom  he  pleases  and 
denies  himself  to  whom  he  pleases.  Sometimes  he 
sees  a  prince  and  denies  himself  to  a  pauper;  at 
other  times  he  receives  the  pauper  and  turns  the 
prince  away.  However,  he  does  not  receive  many 
of  either  class.  He  has  to  husband  his  time  for  his 
meditations.  I  think  he  would  receive  Rev.  Mr. 
Parker  at  any  time.  I  think  he  is  sorry  for  Mr. 
Parker,  and  I  think  Mr.  Parker  is  sorry  for  him; 
and  no  doubt  this  compassion  is  good  for  both  of 
them. 

When  we  arrived  we  had  to  stand  around  in  the 
garden  a  little  while  and  wait,  and  the  outlook  was 
not  good,  for  he  had  been  turning  away  Maharajas 
that  day  and  receiving  only  the  riffraff,  and  we 

189 


MARK    TWAIN 

belonged  in  between,  somewhere.  But  presently,  a 
servant  came  out  saying  it  was  all  right,  he  was 
coming. 

And  sure  enough,  he  came,  and  I  saw  him — that 
object  of  the  worship  of  millions.  It  was  a  strange 
sensation,  and  thrilling.  I  wish  I  could  feel  it  stream 
through  my  veins  again.  And  yet,  to  me  he  was 
not  a  god,  he  was  only  a  Taj.  The  thrill  was  not 
my  thrill,  but  had  come  to  me  second  hand  from 
those  invisible  millions  of  believers.  By  a  hand 
shake  with  their  god  I  had  ground-circuited  their 
wire  and  got  their  monster  battery's  whole  charge. 

He  was  tall  and  slender,  indeed  emaciated.  He 
had  a  clean-cut  and  conspicuously  intellectual  face, 
and  a  deep  and  kindly  eye.  He  looked  many  years 
older  than  he  really  was,  but  much  study  and  medi 
tation  and  fasting  and  prayer,  with  the  arid  life  he 
had  led  as  hermit  and  beggar,  could  account  for 
that.  He  is  wholly  nude  when  he  receives  natives, 
of  whatever  rank  they  may  be,  but  he  had  white 
cloth  around  his  loins  now,  a  concession  to  Mr. 
Parker's  European  prejudices,  no  doubt. 

As  soon  as  I  had  sobered  down  a  little  we  got 
along  very  well  together,  and  I  found  him  a  most 
pleasant  and  friendly  deity.  He  had  heard  a  deal 
about  Chicago,  and  showed  a  quite  remarkable  inter 
est  in  it,  for  a  god.  It  all  came  of  the  World's  Fair 
and  the  Congress  of  Religions.  If  India  knows 
about  nothing  else  American,  she  knows  about  those, 
and  will  keep  them  in  mind  one  while. 

He  proposed  an  exchange  of  autographs,  a  delicate 
attention  which  made  me  believe  in  him,  but  I 

190 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

had  been  having  my  doubts  before.  He  wrote  his 
in  his  book,  and  I  have  a  reverent  regard  for  that 
book,  though  the  words  run  from  right  to  left,  and 
so  I  can't  read  it.  It  was  a  mistake  to  print  in  that 
way.  It  contains  his  voluminous  comments  on  the 
Hindu  holy  writings,  and  if  I  could  make  them  out 
I  would  try  for  perfection  myself.  I  gave  him  a 
copy  of  Huckleberry  Finn.  I  thought  it  might  rest 
him  up  a  little  to  mix  it  in  along  with  his  medita 
tions  on  Brahma,  for  he  looked  tired,  and  I  knew 
that  if  it  didn't  do  him  any  good  it  wouldn't  do  him 
any  harm. 

He  has  a  scholar  meditating  under  him — Mina 
Bahadur  Rana — but  we  did  not  see  him.  He  wears 
clothes  and  is  very  imperfect.  He  has  written  a 
little  pamphlet  about  his  master,  and  I  have  that. 
It  contains  a  wood-cut  of  the  master  and  himself 
seated  on  a  rug  in  the  garden.  The  portrait  of  the 
master  is  very  good,  indeed.  The  posture  is  exactly 
that  which  Brahma  himself  affects,  and  it  requires 
long  arms  and  limber  legs,  and  can  be  accumulated 
only  by  gods  and  the  india-rubber  man.  There  is  a 
life-size  marble  relief  of  Sri  108  S.  B.  S.  in  the 
garden.  It  represents  him  in  this  same  posture. 

Dear  me!  It  is  a  strange  world.  Particularly  the 
Indian  division  of  it.  This  pupil,  Mina  Bahadur 
Rana,  is  not  a  commonplace  person,  but  a  man  of 
distinguished  capacities  and  attainments,  and,  appar 
ently,  he  had  a  fine  worldly  career  in  front  of  him. 
He  was  serving  the  Nepal  Government  in  a  high 
capacity  at  the  Court  of  the  Viceroy  of  India,  twenty 
years  ago.  He  was  an  able  man,  educated,  a  thinker, 

191 


MARK    TWAIN 

a  man  of  property.  But  the  longing  to  devote  him 
self  to  a  religious  life  came  upon  him,  and  he  re 
signed  his  place,  turned  his  back  upon  the  vanities 
and  comforts  of  the  world,  and  went  away  into  the 
solitudes  to  live  in  a  hut  and  study  the  sacred 
writings  and  meditate  upon  virtue  and  holiness  and 
seek  to  attain  them.  This  sort  of  religion  resembles 
ours.  Christ  recommended  the  rich  to  give  away 
all  their  property  and  follow  Him  in  poverty,  not  in 
worldly  comfort.  American  and  English  millionaires 
do  it  every  day,  and  thus  verify  and  confirm  to  the 
world  the  tremendous  forces  that  lie  in  religion. 
Yet  many  people  scoff  at  them  for  this  loyalty  to 
duty,  and  many  will  scoff  at  Mina  Bahadur  Rana 
and  call  him  a  crank.  Like  many  Christians  of 
great  character  and  intellect,  he  has  made  the  study 
of  his  Scriptures  and  the  writing  of  books  of  com 
mentaries  upon  them  the  loving  labor  of  his  life. 
Like  them,  he  has  believed  that  this  was  not  an  idle 
and  foolish  waste  of  his  life,  but  a  most  worthy  and 
honorable  employment  of  it.  Yet,  there  are  many 
people  who  will  see  in  those  others,  men  worthy  of 
homage  and  deep  reverence,  but  in  him  merely  a 
crank.  But  I  shall  not.  He  has  my  reverence. 
And  I  don't  offer  it  as  a  common  thing  and  poor, 
but  as  an  unusual  thing  and  of  value.  The  ordinary 
reverence,  the  reverence  defined  and  explained  by 
the  dictionary,  costs  nothing.  Reverence  for  one's 
own  sacred  things — parents,  religion,  flag,  laws,  and 
respect  for  one's  own  beliefs — these  are  feelings 
which  we  cannot  even  help.  They  come  natural  to 
us;  they  are  involuntary,  like  breathing.  There 

192 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

is  no  personal  merit  in  breathing.  But  the  reverence 
which  is  difficult,  and  which  has  personal  merit  in 
it,  is  the  respect  which  you  pay,  without  compulsion, 
to  the  political  or  religious  attitude  of  a  man  whose 
beliefs  are  not  yours.  You  can't  revere  his  gods 
or  his  politics,  and  no  one  expects  you  to  do  that, 
but  you  could  respect  his  belief  in  them  if  you  tried 
hard  enough;  and  you  could  respect  him,  too,  if 
you  tried  hard  enough.  But  it  is  very,  very  difficult ; 
it  is  next  to  impossible,  and  so  we  hardly  ever  try. 
If  the  man  doesn't  believe  as  we  do,  we  say  he  is  a 
crank,  and  that  settles  it.  I  mean  it  does  nowadays, 
because  now  we  can't  burn  him. 

We  are  always  canting  about  people's  "irrever 
ence,"  always  charging  this  offense  upon  somebody 
or  other,  and  thereby  intimating  that  we  are  better 
than  that  person  and  do  not  commit  that  offense 
ourselves.  Whenever  we  do  this  we  are  in  a  lying 
attitude,  and  our  speech  is  cant;  for  none  of  us  are 
reverent — in  a  meritorious  way;  deep  down  in  our 
hearts  we  are  all  irreverent.  There  is  probably  not 
a  single  exception  to  this  rule  in  the  earth.  There 
is  probably  not  one  person  whose  reverence  rises 
higher  than  respect  for  his  own  sacred  things;  and 
therefore,  it  is  not  a  thing  to  boast  about  and  be 
proud  of,  since  the  most  degraded  savage  has  that — 
and,  like  the  best  of  us,  has  nothing  higher.  To 
speak  plainly,  we  despise  all  reverences  and  all  ob 
jects  of  reverence  which  are  outside  the  pale  of  our 
own  list  of  sacred  things.  And  yet,  with  strange 
inconsistency,  we  are  shocked  when  other  people 
despise  and  defile  the  things  which  are  holy  to  us. 
H.-I3  193 


MARK     TWAIN 

Suppose  we  should  meet  with  a  paragraph  like  the 
following,  in  the  newspapers : 

"Yesterday  a  visiting  party  of  the  British  nobility 
had  a  picnic  at  Mount  Vernon,  and  in  the  tomb  of 
Washington  they  ate  their  luncheon,  sang  popular 
songs,  played  games,  and  danced  waltzes  and  polkas." 

Should  we  be  shocked?  Should  we  feel  outraged? 
Should  we  be  amazed?  Should  we  call  the  per 
formance  a  desecration?  Yes,  that  would  all  happen. 
We  should  denounce  those  people  in  round  terms, 
and  call  them  hard  names. 

And  suppose  we  found  this  paragraph  in  the 
newspapers : 

"Yesterday  a  visiting  party  of  American  pork- 
millionaires  had  a  picnic  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
in  that  sacred  place  they  ate  their  luncheon,  sang 
popular  songs,  played  games,  and  danced  waltzes 
and  polkas." 

Would  the  English  be  shocked?  Would  they  feel 
outraged?  Would  they  be  amazed?  Would  they 
call  the  performance  a  desecration?  That  would  all 
happen.  The  pork-millionaires  would  be  denounced 
in  round  terms;  they  would  be  called  hard  names. 

In  the  tomb  at  Mount  Vernon  lie  the  ashes  of 
America's  most  honored  son;  in  the  Abbey,  the 
ashes  of  England's  greatest  dead;  the  tomb  of 
tombs,  the  costliest  in  the  earth,  the  wonder  of  the 
world,  the  Taj,  was  built  by  a  great  Emperor  to 
honor  the  memory  of  a  perfect  wife  and  perfect 
mother,  one  in  whom  there  was  no  spot  or  blemish, 
whose  love  was  his  stay  and  support,  whose  life  was 
the  light  of  the  world  to  him;  in  it  her  ashes  lie, 

194 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

and  to  the  Mohammedan  millions  of  India  it  is  a 
holy  place;  to  them  it  is  what  Mount  Vernon  is  to 
Americans,  it  is  what  the  Abbey  is  to  the  English. 
Major  Sleeman  wrote  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  (the 
italics  are  mine) : 

I  would  here  enter  my  humble  protest  against  the  quadrille 
and  lunch  parties  which  are  sometimes  given  to  European  ladies 
and  gentlemen  of  the  station  at  this  imperial  tomb;  drinking 
and  dancing  are  no  doubt  very  good  things  in  their  season,  but 
they  are  sadly  out  of  place  in  a  sepulcher. 

Were  there  any  Americans  among  those  lunch- 
parties?  If  they  were  invited,  there  were. 

If  my  imagined  lunch-parties  in  Westminster  and 
the  tomb  of  Washington  should  take  place,  the  inci 
dent  would  cause  a  vast  outbreak  of  bitter  eloquence 
about  Barbarism  and  Irreverence;  and  it  would 
come  from  two  sets  of  people  who  would  go  next 
day  and  dance  in  the  Taj  if  they  had  a  chance. 

As  we  took  our  leave  of  the  Benares  god  and 
started  away  we  noticed  a  group  of  natives  waiting 
respectfully  just  within  the  gate  —  a  Raja  from 
somewhere  in  India,  and  some  people  of  lesser  con 
sequence.  The  god  beckoned  them  to  come,  and  as 
we  passed  out  the  Raja  was  kneeling  and  reverently 
kissing  his  sacred  feet. 

If  Barnum — but  Barnum's  ambitions  are  at  rest. 
This  god  will  remain  in  the  holy  peace  and  seclusion 
of  his  garden,  undisturbed.  Barnum  could  not  have 
gotten  him,  anyway.  Still,  he  would  have  found  a 
substitute  that  would  answer. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

OCHTERLONY  —  ALSO  THE  BLACK  HOLE 

Do  not  undervalue  the  headache.  While  it  is  at  its  sharpest  it  seems  a  bad 
Investment;  but  when  relief  begins,  the  unexpired  remainder  is  worth  four  dollars 
a  minute. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

A  COMFORTABLE  railway  journey  of  seventeen 
/"\  and  a  half  hours  brought  us  to  the  capital  of 
India,  which  is  likewise  the  capital  of  Bengal — Cal 
cutta.  Like  Bombay,  it  has  a  population  of  nearly 
a  million  natives  and  a  small  gathering  of  white 
people.  It  is  a  huge  city  and  fine,  and  is  called  the 
City  of  Palaces.  It  is  rich  in  historical  memories; 
rich  in  British  achievement — military,  political,  com 
mercial;  rich  in  the  results  of  the  miracles  done  by 
that  brace  of  mighty  magicians,  Clive  and  Hastings. 
And  has  a  cloud-kissing  monument  to  one  Ochterlony. 

It  is  a  fluted  candlestick  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
high.  This  lingam  is  the  only  large  monument  in 
Calcutta,  I  believe.  It  is  a  fine  ornament,  and  will 
keep  Ochterlony  in  mind. 

Wherever  you  are,  in  Calcutta,  and  for  miles 
around,  you  can  see  it;  and  always  when  you  see  it 
you  think  of  Ochterlony.  And  so  there  is  not  an 
hour  in  the  day  that  you  do  not  think  of  Ochterlony 
and  wonder  who  he  was.  It  is  good  that  Clive  can 
not  come  back,  for  he  would  think  it  was  for  Plassey; 
and  then  that  great  spirit  would  be  wounded  when 
the  revelation  came  that  it  was  not.  Clive  would 

196 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

find  out  that  it  was  for  Ochterlony;  and  he  would 
think  Ochterlony  was  a  battle.  And  he  would  think 
it  was  a  great  one,  too,  and  he  would  say,  "With 
three  thousand  I  whipped  sixty  thousand  and 
founded  the  Empire — and  there  is  no  monument; 
this  other  soldier  must  have  whipped  a  billion  with 
a  dozen  and  saved  the  world." 

But  he  would  be  mistaken.  Ochterlony  was  a  man, 
not  a  battle.  And  he  did  good  and  honorable 
service,  too;  as  good  and  honorable  service  as  has 
been  done  in  India  by  seventy-five  or  a  hundred 
other  Englishmen  of  courage,  rectitude,  and  dis 
tinguished  capacity.  For  India  has  been  a  fertile 
breeding-ground  of  such  men,  and  remains  so;  great 
men,  both  in  war  and  in  the  civil  service,  and  as 
modest  as  great.  But  they  have  no  monuments, 
and  were  not  expecting  any.  Ochterlony  could  not 
have  been  expecting  one,  and  it  is  not  at  all  likely 
that  he  desired  one — certainly  not  until  Clive  and 
Hastings  should  be  supplied.  Every  day  Clive  and 
Hastings  lean  on  the  battlements  of  heaven  and  look 
down  and  wonder  which  of  the  two  the  monument 
is  for;  and  they  fret  and  worry  because  they  cannot 
find  out,  and  so  the  peace  of  heaven  is  spoiled  for 
them  and  lost.  But  not  for  Ochterlony.  Ochter 
lony  is  not  troubled.  He  doesn't  suspect  that  it  is 
his  monument.  Heaven  is  sweet  and  peaceful  to 
him.  There  is  a  sort  of  unfairness  about  it  all. 

Indeed,  if  monuments  were  always  given  in  India 
for  high  achievements,  duty  straightly  performed, 
and  smirchless  records,  the  landscape  would  be  mo 
notonous  with  them.  The  handful  of  English  in  In- 

197 


MARK    TWAIN 

dia  govern  the  Indian  myriads  with  apparent  ease, 
and  without  noticeable  friction,  through  tact,  train 
ing,  and  distinguished  administrative  ability,  rein 
forced  by  just  and  liberal  laws — and  by  keeping  their 
word  to  the  native  whenever  they  give  it. 

England  is  far  from  India  and  knows  little  about 
the  eminent  services  performed  by  her  servants  there, 
for  it  is  the  newspaper  correspondent  who  makes 
fame,  and  he  is  not  sent  to  India  but  to  the  continent, 
to  report  the  doings  of  the  princelets  and  the  duke- 
lets,  and  where  they  are  visiting  and  whom  they  are 
marrying.  Often  a  British  official  spends  thirty  or 
forty  years  in  India,  climbing  from  grade  to  grade 
by  services  which  would  make  him  celebrated  any 
where  else,  and  finishes  as  a  vice-sovereign,  governing 
a  great  realm  and  millions  of  subjects;  then  he  goes 
home  to  England  substantially  unknown  and  unheard 
of,  and  settles  down  in  some  modest  corner,  and  is 
as  one  extinguished.  Ten  years  later  there  is  a 
twenty-line  obituary  in  the  London  papers,  and  the 
reader  is  paralyzed  by  the  splendors  of  a  career 
which  he  is  not  sure  that  he  had  ever  heard  of  before. 
But  meanwhile  he  has  learned  all  about  the  conti 
nental  princelets  and  dukelets. 

The  average  man  is  profoundly  ignorant  of  coun 
tries  that  lie  remote  from  his  own.  When  they  are 
mentioned  in  his  presence  one  or  two  facts  and 
maybe  a  couple  of  names  rise  like  torches  in  his 
mind,  lighting  up  an  inch  or  two  of  it  and  leaving 
the  rest  all  dark.  The  mention  of  Egypt  suggests 
some  Biblical  facts  and  the  Pyramids — nothing 
more.  The  mention  of  South  Africa  suggests  Kim- 

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

berley  and  the  diamonds  and  there  an  end.  Formerly 
the  mention,  to  a  Hindu,  of  America  suggested  a 
name — George  Washington — with  that  his  familiar 
ity  with  our  country  was  exhausted.  Latterly  his 
familiarity  with  it  has  doubled  in  bulk;  so  that 
when  America  is  mentioned  now,  two  torches  flare 
up  in  the  dark  caverns  of  his  mind  and  he  says, 
"Ah,  the  country  of  the  great  man — Washington; 
and  of  the  Holy  City — Chicago."  For  he  knows 
about  the  Congress  of  Religions,  and  this  has  enabled 
him  to  get  an  erroneous  impression  of  Chicago. 

When  India  is  mentioned  to  the  citizen  of  a  far 
country  it  suggests  Clive,  Hastings,  the  Mutiny, 
Kipling,  and  a  number  of  other  great  events;  and 
the  mention  of  Calcutta  infallibly  brings  up  the 
Black  Hole.  And  so,  when  that  citizen  finds  himself 
in  the  capital  of  India  he  goes  first  of  all  to  see  the 
Black  Hole  of  Calcutta — and  is  disappointed. 

The  Black  Hole  was  not  preserved;  it  is  gone, 
long,  long  ago.  It  is  strange.  Just  as  it  stood,  it 
was  itself  a  monument;  a  ready-made  one.  It  was 
finished,  it  was  complete,  its  materials  were  strong 
and  lasting,  it  needed  no  furbishing  up,  no  repairs; 
it  merely  needed  to  be  let  alone.  It  was  the  first 
brick,  the  Foundation  Stone,  upon  which  was  reared 
a  mighty  Empire — the  Indian  Empire  of  Great 
Britain.  It  was  the  ghastly  episode  of  the  Black 
Hole  that  maddened  the  British  and  brought  Clive, 
that  young  military  marvel,  raging  up  from  Madras; 
it  was  the  seed  from  which  sprung  Plassey;  and  it 
was  that  extraordinary  battle,  whose  like  had  not 
been  seen  in  the  earth  since  Agincourt,  that  laid 

199 


MARK    TWAIN 

deep  and  strong  the  foundations  of  England's  colos 
sal  Indian  sovereignty. 

And  yet  within  the  time  of  men  who  still  live, 
the  Black  Hole  was  torn  down  and  thrown  away  as 
carelessly  as  if  its  bricks  were  common  clay,  not 
ingots  of  historic  gold.  There  is  no  accounting  for 
human  beings. 

The  supposed  site  of  the  Black  Hole  is  marked  by 
an  engraved  plate.  I  saw  that ;  and  better  that  than 
nothing.  The  Black  Hole  was  a  prison — a  cell  is 
nearer  the  right  word — eighteen  feet  square,  the 
dimensions  of  an  ordinary  bedchamber;  and  into 
this  place  the  victorious  Nabob  of  Bengal  packed  one 
hundred  and  forty-six  of  his  English  prisoners.  There 
was  hardly  standing-room  for  them;  scarcely  a 
breath  of  air  was  to  be  got;  the  time  was  night,  the 
weather  sweltering  hot.  Before  the  dawn  came,  the 
captives  were  all  dead  but  twenty-three.  Mr.  Hoi- 
well's  long  account  of  the  awful  episode  was  familiar 
to  the  world  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  one  seldom 
sees  in  print  even  an  extract  from  it  in  our  day. 
Among  the  striking  things  in  it  is  this.  Mr.  Holwell, 
perishing  with  thirst,  kept  himself  alive  by  sucking 
the  perspiration  from  his  sleeves.  It  gives  one  a 
vivid  idea  of  the  situation.  He  presently  found  that 
while  he  was  busy  drawing  life  from  one  of  his  sleeves 
a  young  English  gentleman  was  stealing  supplies 
from  the  other  one.  Holwell  was  an  unselfish  man, 
a  man  of  the  most  generous  impulses;  he  lived  and 
died  famous  for  these  fine  and  rare  qualities;  yet 
when  he  found  out  what  was  happening  to  that 
unwatched  sleeve,  he  took  the  precaution  to  suck  that 

200 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

one  dry  first.  The  miseries  of  the  Black  Hole  were 
able  to  change  even  a  nature  like  his.  But  that 
young  gentleman  was  one  of  the  twenty-three  sur 
vivors,  and  he  said  it  was  the  stolen  perspiration  that 
saved  his  life.  From  the  middle  of  Mr.  Hoi  well's  nar 
rative  I  will  make  a  brief  extract : 

Then  a  general  prayer  to  Heaven,  to  hasten  the  approach  of 
the  flames  to  the  right  and  left  of  us,  and  put  a  period  to  our 
misery.  But  these  failing,  they  whose  strength  and  spirits  were 
quite  exhausted  laid  themselves  down  and  expired  quietly  upon 
their  fellows;  others  who  had  yet  some  strength  and  vigor  left 
made  a  last  effort  at  the  windows,  and  several  succeeded  by  leap 
ing  and  scrambling  over  the  backs  and  heads  of  those  in  the 
first  rank,  and  got  hold  of  the  bars,  from  which  there  was  no 
removing  them.  Many  to  the  right  and  left  sunk  with  the 
violent  pressure,  and  were  soon  suffocated;  for  now  a  steam 
arose  from  the  living  and  the  dead,  which  affected  us  in  all  its 
circumstances  as  if  we  were  forcibly  held  with  our  heads  over 
a  bowl  full  of  strong  volatile  spirit  of  hartshorn,  until  suffocated; 
nor  could  the  effluvia  of  the  one  be  distinguished  from  the  other, 
and  frequently,  when  I  was  forced  by  the  load  upon  my  head 
and  shoulders  to  hold  my  face  down,  I  was  obliged,  near  as  I 
was  to  the  window,  instantly  to  raise  it  again  to  avoid  suffocation. 
I  need  not,  my  dear  friend,  ask  your  commiseration,  when  I  tell 
you,  that  in  this  plight,  from  half  an  hour  past  eleven  till  near 
two  in  the  morning,  I  sustained  the  weight  of  a  heavy  man, 
with  his  knees  in  my  back,  and  the  pressure  of  his  whole  body 
on  my  head,  a  Dutch  surgeon  who  had  taken  his  seat  upon  my 
left  shoulder,  and  a  Topaz  (a  black  Christian  soldier)  bearing 
on  my  right;  all  which  nothing  could  have  enabled  me  to 
support  but  the  props  and  pressure  equally  sustaining  me  all 
around.  The  two  latter  I  frequently  dislodged  by  shifting  my 
hold  on  the  bars  and  driving  my  knuckles  into  their  ribs;  but 
my  friend  above  stuck  fast,  held  immovable  by  two  bars. 

I  exerted  anew  my  strength  and  fortitude;  but  the  repeated 
trials  and  efforts  I  made  to  dislodge  the  insufferable  incumbrances 
upon  me  at  last  quite  exhausted  me;  and  toward  two  o'clock, 
finding  I  must  quit  the  window  or  sink  where  I  was,  I  resolved 

201 


MARK    TWAIN 

on  the  former,  having  borne,  truly  for  the  sake  of  others,  infinitely 
more  for  life  than  the  best  of  it  is  worth.  In  the  rank  close 
behind  me  was  an  officer  of  one  of  the  ships,  whose  name  was 
Gary,  and  who  had  behaved  with  much  bravery  during  the 
siege  (his  wife,  a  fine  woman,  though  country-born,  would  not 
quit  him,  but  accompanied  him  into  the  prison,  and  was  one 
who  survived).  This  poor  wretch  had  been  long  raving  for 
water  and  air;  I  told  him  I  was  determined  to  give  up  life,  and 
recommended  his  gaining  my  station.  On  my  quitting  it  he 
made  a  fruitless  attempt  to  get  my  place;  but  the  Dutch 
surgeon  who  sat  on  my  shoulder  supplanted  him.  Poor  Gary 
expressed  his  thankfulness,  and  said  he  would  give  up  life  too; 
but  it  was  with  the  utmost  labor  we  forced  our  way  from  the 
window  (several  in  the  inner  ranks  appearing  to  me  dead  stand 
ing,  unable  to  fall  by  the  throng  and  equal  pressure  around). 
He  laid  himself  down  to  die;  and  his  death,  I  believe,  was  very 
sudden;  for  he  was  a  short,  full,  sanguine  man.  His  strength 
was  great;  and,  I  imagine,  had  he  not  retired  with  me,  I  should 
never  have  been  able  to  force  my  way.  I  was  at  this  time 
sensible  of  no  pain,  and  little  uneasiness;  I  can  give  you  no  better 
idea  of  my  situation  than  by  repeating  my  simile  of  the  bowl 
of  spirit  of  hartshorn.  I  found  a  stupor  coming  on  apace,  and 
laid  myself  down  by  that  gallant  old  man,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Jervas 
Bellamy,  who  lay  dead  with  his  son,  the  lieutenant,  hand  in 
hand,  near  the  southernmost  wall  of  the  prison.  When  I  had 
lain  there  some  little  time,  I  still  had  reflection  enough  to  suffer 
some  uneasiness  in  the  thought  that  I  should  be  trampled  upon, 
when  dead,  as  I  myself  had  done  to  others.  With  some  difficulty 
I  raised  myself,  and  gained  the  platform  a  second  time,  where 
I  presently  lost  all  sensation;  the  last  trace  of  sensibility  that  I 
have  been  able  to  recollect  after  my  lying  down,  was  my  sash 
being  uneasy  about  my  waist,  which  I  untied  and  threw  from  me. 
Of  what  passed  in  this  interval,  to  the  time  of  my  resurrection 
from  this  hole  of  horrors,  I  can  give  you  no  account. 

There  was  plenty  to  see  in  Calcutta,  but  there 
was  not  plenty  of  time  for  it.  I  saw  the  fort  that 
Clive  built;  and  the  place  where  Warren  Hastings 
and  the  author  of  the  Junius  Letters  fought  their 
duel;  and  the  great  botanical  gardens;  and  the 

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FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

fashionable  afternoon  turnout  in  the  Maidan;  and  a 
grand  review  of  the  garrison  in  a  great  plain  at  sun 
rise  ;  and  a  military  tournament  in  which  great  bodies 
of  native  soldiery  exhibited  the  perfection  of  their 
drill  at  all  arms,  a  spectacular  and  beautiful  show 
occupying  several  nights  and  closing  with  the  mimic 
storming  of  a  native  fort  which  was  as  good  as  the 
reality  for  thrilling  and  accurate  detail,  and  better 
than  the  reality  for  security  and  comfort;  we  had  a 
pleasure  excursion  on  the  Hoogly  by  courtesy  of 
friends,  and  devoted  the  rest  of  the  time  to  social  life 
and  the  Indian  museum.  One  should  spend  a  month 
in  the  museum,  an  enchanted  palace  of  Indian 
antiquities.  Indeed,  a  person  might  spend  half  a 
year  among  the  beautiful  and  wonderful  things 
without  exhausting  their  interest. 

It  was  winter.  We  were  of  Kipling's  "hosts  of 
tourists  who  travel  up  and  down  India  in  the  cold 
weather  showing  how  things  ought  to  be  managed." 
It  is  a  common  expression  there,  "the  cold  weather," 
and  the  people  think  there  is  such  a  thing.  It  is 
because  they  have  lived  there  half  a  lifetime,  and 
their  perceptions  have  become  blunted.  When  a 
person  is  accustomed  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  in  the  shade,  his  ideas  about  cold  weather  are 
not  valuable.  I  had  read,  in  the  histories,  that  the 
June  marches  made  between  Lucknow  and  Cawnpore 
by  the  British  forces  in  the  time  of  the  Mutiny  were 
made  in  that  kind  of  weather — one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  in  the  shade — and  had  taken  it  for 
historical  embroidery.  I  had  read  it  again  in  Ser 
geant-Major  Forbes-Mitchell's  account  of  his  mili- 

203 


MARK    TWAIN 

tary  experiences  in  the  Mutiny — at  least  I  thought  I 
had — and  in  Calcutta  I  asked  him  if  it  was  true, 
and  he  said  it  was.  An  officer  of  high  rank  who  had 
been  in  the  thick  of  the  Mutiny  said  the  same.  As 
long  as  those  men  were  talking  about  what  they 
knew,  they  were  trustworthy,  and  I  believed  them; 
but  when  they  said  it  was  now  ''cold  weather,"  I 
saw  that  they  had  traveled  outside  of  their  sphere  of 
knowledge  and  were  floundering.  I  believe  that  in 
India  ''cold  weather"  is  merely  a  conventional  phrase 
and  has  come  into  use  through  the  necessity  of  hav 
ing  some  way  to  distinguish  between  weather  which 
will  melt  a  brass  door-knob  and  weather  which  will 
only  make  it  mushy.  It  was  observable  that  brass 
ones  were  in  use  while  I  was  in  Calcutta,  showing 
that  it  was  not  yet  time  to  change  to  porcelain; 
I  was  told  the  change  to  porcelain  was  not  usually 
made  until  May.  But  this  cold  weather  was  too 
warm  for  us;  so  we  started  to  Darjeeling,  in  the 
Himalayas — a  twenty-four-hour  journey 


204 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW  VILE  IS  THE  HEATHEN,  REALLY? 

There  are  eight  hundred  and  sixty-nine  different  forms  of  lying,  but  only  one  of 
them  has  been  squarely  forbidden.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy 
neighbor. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FROM  DIARY: 
February   14.     We   left   at   4.30   P.M.     Until 
dark  we  moved  through  rich  vegetation,  then  changed 
to  a  boat  and  crossed  the  Ganges. 

February  15.  Up  with  the  sun.  A  brilliant  morn 
ing,  and  frosty.  A  double  suit  of  flannels  is  found 
necessary.  The  plain  is  perfectly  level,  and  seems 
to  stretch  away  and  away  and  away,  dimming  and 
softening,  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of  nowhere. 
What  a  soaring,  strenuous,  gushing  fountain-spray 
of  delicate  greenery  a  bunch  of  bamboo  is !  As  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach,  these  grand  vegetable  geysers 
grace  the  view,  their  spoutings  refined  to  steam  by 
distance.  And  there  are  fields  of  bananas,  with  the 
sunshine  glancing  from  the  varnished  surface  of 
their  drooping  vast  leaves.  And  there  are  frequent 
groves  of  palm;  and  an  effective  accent  is  given  to 
the  landscape  by  isolated  individuals  of  this  pic 
turesque  family,  towering,  clean-stemmed,  their 
plumes  broken  and  hanging  ragged,  Nature's  imita 
tion  of  an  umbrella  that  has  been  out  to  see  what  a 
cyclone  is  like  and  is  trying  not  to  look  disappointed. 
And  everywhere  through  the  soft  morning  vistas  we 

205 


MARK    TWAIN 

glimpse  the  villages,  the  countless  villages,  the 
myriad  villages,  thatched,  built  of  clean  new  mat 
ting,  snuggling  among  grouped  palms  and  sheaves 
of  bamboo;  villages,  villages,  no  end  of  villages,  not 
three  hundred  yards  apart,  and  dozens  and  dozens 
of  them  in  sight  all  the  time;  a  mighty  City,  hun 
dreds  of  miles  long,  hundreds  of  miles  broad,  made 
of  all  villages,  the  biggest  city  in  the  earth,  and 
as  populous  as  a  European  kingdom.  I  have  seen 
no  such  city  as  this  before.  And  there  is  a  con 
tinuously  repeated  and  replenished  multitude  of 
naked  men  in  view  on  both  sides  and  ahead.  We 
fly  through  it  mile  after  mile,  but  still  it  is  always 
there,  on  both  sides  and  ahead — brown-bodied, 
naked  men  and  boys,  plowing  in  the  fields.  But 
not  a  woman.  In  these  two  hours  I  have  not  seen  a 
woman  or  a  girl  working  in  the  fields. 

From  Greenland's  icy  mountains, 

From  India's  coral  strand, 
Where  Afric's  sunny  fountains 

Roll  down  their  golden  sand; 
From  many  an  ancient  river, 

From  many  a  palmy  plain, 
They  call  us  to  deliver 

Their  land  from  error's  chain. 

Those  are  beautiful  verses,  and  they  have  re 
mained  in  my  memory  all  my  life.  But  if  the 
closing  lines  are  true,  let  us  hope  that  when  we 
come  to  answer  the  call  and  deliver  the  land  from 
its  errors,  we  shall  secrete  from  it  some  of  our  high- 
civilization  ways,  and  at  the  same  time  borrow  some 
of  its  pagan  ways  to  enrich  our  high  system  with. 
We  have  a  right  to  do  this.  If  we  lift  those  people 

206 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

up,  we  have  a  right  to  life  ourselves  up  nine  or  ten 
grades  or  so,  at  their  expense.  A  few  years  ago  I 
spent  several  weeks  at  Tolz,  in  Bavaria.  It  is  a 
Roman  Catholic  region,  and  not  even  Benares  is 
more  deeply  or  pervasively  or  intelligently  devout. 
In  my  diary  of  those  days  I  find  this: 

We  took  a  long  drive  yesterday  around  about  the  lovely  coun 
try  roads.  But  it  was  a  drive  whose  pleasure  was  damaged  in 
a  couple  of  ways:  by  the  dreadful  shrines  and  by  the  shameful 
spectacle  of  gray  and  venerable  old  grandmothers  toiling  in  the 
fields.  The  shrines  were  frequent  along  the  roads — figures  of 
the  Saviour  nailed  to  the  cross  and  streaming  with  blood  from 
the  wounds  of  the  nails  and  thorns. 

When  missionaries  go  from  here  do  they  find  fault  with  the 
pagan  idols?  I  saw  many  women,  seventy  and  even  eighty 
years  old,  mowing  and  binding  in  the  fields,  and  pitchforking 
the  loads  into  the  wagons. 

I  was  in  Austria  later,  and  in  Munich.  In  Munich 
I  saw  gray  old  women  pushing  trucks  uphill  and 
down,  long  distances,  trucks  laden  with  barrels  of 
beer,  incredible  loads.  In  my  Austrian  diary  I  find 
this: 

In  the  fields  I  often  see  a  woman  and  a  cow  harnessed  to  the 
plow,  and  a  man  driving. 

In  the  public  street  of  Marienbad  to-day,  I  saw  an  old,  bent, 
gray -headed  woman  in  harness  with  a  dog,  drawing  a  laden  sled 
over  bare  dirt  roads  and  bare  pavements;  and  at  his  ease  walked 
the  driver,  smoking  his  pipe,  a  hale  fellow  not  thirty  years  old. 

Five  or  six  years  ago  I  bought  an  open  boat, 
made  a  kind  of  a  canvas  wagon-roof  over  the  stern 
of  it  to  shelter  me  from  sun  and  rain;  hired  a  courier 
and  a  boatman,  and  made  a  twelve-day  floating 
voyage  down  the  Rhone  from  Lake  Bourget  to  Mar- 

207 


MARK  TWAIN 

seilles.     In  my  diary  of  that  trip  I  find  this  entry. 
I  was  far  down  the  Rhone  then: 

Passing  St.  Etienne,  2.15  P.M.  On  a  distant  ridge  inland,  a 
tall  open-work  structure  commandingly  situated,  with  a  statue 
of  the  Virgin  standing  on  it.  A  devout  country.  All  down  this 
river,  wherever  there  is  a  crag  there  is  a  statue  of  the  Virgin  on 
it.  I  believe  I  have  seen  a  hundred  of  them.  And  yet,  in  many 
respects,  the  peasantry  seem  to  be  mere  pagans,  and  destitute 
of  any  considerable  degree  of  civilization. 

.  .  .  We  reached  a  not  very  promising-looking  village  about 
four  o'clock,  and  I  concluded  to  tie  up  for  the  day;  munching 
fruit  and  fogging  the  hood  with  pipe-smoke  had  grown  monoto 
nous;  I  could  not  have  the  hood  furled,  because  the  floods  of 
rain  fell  unceasingly.  The  tavern  was  on  the  river-bank,  as  is 
the  custom.  It  was  dull  there,  and  melancholy — nothing  to  do 
but  look  out  of  the  window  into  the  drenching  rain  and  shiver; 
one  could  do  that,  for  it  was  bleak  and  cold  and  windy,  and 
country  France  furnishes  no  fire.  Winter  overcoats  did  not 
help  me  much;  they  had  to  be  supplemented  with  rugs.  The 
raindrops  were  so  large  and  struck  the  river  with  such  force 
that  they  knocked  up  the  water  like  pebble-splashes. 

With  the  exception  of  a  very  occasional  wooden-shod  peasant, 
nobody  was  abroad  in  this  bitter  weather — I  mean  nobody  of  our 
sex.  But  all  weathers  are  alike  to  the  women  in  these  continental 
countries.  To  them  and  the  other  animals,  life  is  serious ;  nothing 
interrupts  their  slavery.  Three  of  them  were  washing  clothes 
in  the  river  under  the  window  when  I  arrived,  and  they  continued 
at  it  as  long  as  there  was  light  to  work  by.  One  was  apparently 
thirty;  another — the  mother! — above  fifty;  the  third — grand 
mother! — so  old  and  worn  and  gray  she  could  have  passed  for 
eighty;  I  took  her  to  be  that  old.  They  had  no  waterproofs 
nor  rubbers,  of  course;  over  their  shoulders  they  wore  gunny- 
sacks — simply  conductors  for  rivers  of  water;  some  of  the  volume 
reached  the  ground;  the  rest  soaked  in  on  the  way. 

At  last,  a  vigorous  fellow  of  thirty-five  arrived,  dry  and  com 
fortable,  smoking  his  pipe  under  his  big  umbrella  in  an  open 
donkey-cart — husband,  son,  and  grandson  of  those  women!  He 
stood  up  in  the  cart,  sheltering  himself,  and  began  to  superin 
tend,  issuing  his  orders  in  a  masterly  tone  of  command,  and 

208 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

showing  temper  when  they  were  not  obeyed  swiftly  enough. 
Without  complaint  or  murmur  the  drowned  women  patiently 
carried  out  the  orders,  lifting  the  immense  baskets  of  soggy, 
wrung-out  clothing  into  the  cart  and  stowing  them  to  the  man's 
satisfaction.  There  were  six  of  the  great  baskets,  and  a  man  of 
mere  ordinary  strength  could  not  have  lifted  any  one  of  them. 
The  cart  being  full  now,  the  Frenchman  descended,  still  sheltered 
by  his  umbrella,  entered  the  tavern,  and  the  women  went  droop 
ing  homeward,  trudging  in  the  wake  of  the  cart,  and  soon  were 
blended  with  the  deluge  and  lost  to  sight. 

When  I  went  down  into  the  public  room,  the  Frenchman  had 
his  bottle  of  wine  and  plate  of  food  on  a  bare  table  black  with 
grease,  and  was  "chomping"  like  a  horse.  He  had  the  little 
religious  paper  which  is  in  everybody's  hands  on  the  Rhone 
borders,  and  was  enlightening  himself  with  the  histories  of  French 
saints  who  used  to  flee  to  the  desert  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  escape 
the  contamination  of  woman.  For  two  hundred  years  France 
has  been  sending  missionaries  to  other  savage  lands.  To  spare 
to  the  needy  from  poverty  like  hers  is  fine  and  true  generosity. 

But  to  get  back  to  India — where,  as  my  favorite 
poem  says : 

Every  prospect  pleases, 
And  only  man  is  vile. 

It  is  because  Bavaria  and  Austria  and  France 
have  not  introduced  their  civilization  to  him  yet. 
But  Bavaria  and  Austria  and  France  are  on  their 
way.  They  are  coming.  They  will  rescue  him;  they 
will  refine  the  vileness  out  of  him. 

Some  time  during  the  forenoon,  approaching  the 
mountains,  we  changed  from  the  regular  train  to 
one  composed  of  little  canvas-sheltered  cars  that 
skimmed  along  within  a  foot  of  the  ground  and 
seemed  to  be  going  fifty  miles  an  hour  when  they 
were  really  making  about  twenty.  Each  car  had 
seating  capacity  for  half  a  dozen  persons;  and  when 
n.— 14  209 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  curtains  were  up  one  was  substantially  out-of- 
doors,  and  could  see  everywhere,  and  get  all  the 
breeze,  and  be  luxuriously  comfortable.  It  was  not 
a  pleasure  excursion  in  name  only,  but  in  fact. 

After  a  while  we  stopped  at  a  little  wooden  coop 
of  a  station  just  within  the  curtain  of  the  somber 
jungle,  a  place  with  a  deep  and  dense  forest  of  great 
trees  and  scrub  and  vines  all  about  it.  The  royal 
Bengal  tiger  is  in  great  force  there,  and  is  very  bold 
and  unconventional.  From  this  lonely  little  station 
a  message  once  went  to  the  railway  manager  in  Cal 
cutta:  "Tiger  eating  station-master  on  front  porch; 
telegraph  instructions . ' ' 

It  was  there  that  I  had  my  first  tiger-hunt.  I 
killed  thirteen.  We  were  presently  away  again,  and 
the  train  began  to  climb  the  mountains.  In  one 
place  seven  wild  elephants  crossed  the  track,  but 
two  of  them  got  away  before  I  could  overtake  them. 
The  railway  journey  up  the  mountain  is  forty  miles, 
and  it  takes  eight  hours  to  make  it.  It  is  so  wild 
and  interesting  and  exciting  and  enchanting  that  it 
ought  to  take  a  week.  As  for  the  vegetation,  it  is  a 
museum.  The  jungle  seemed  to  contain  samples 
of  every  rare  and  curious  tree  and  bush  that  we 
had  ever  seen  or  heard  of.  It  is  from  that  museum, 
I  think,  that  the  globe  must  have  been  supplied 
with  the  trees  and  vines  and  shrubs  that  it  holds 
precious. 

The  road  is  infinitely  and  charmingly  crooked.  It 
goes  winding  in  and  out  under  lofty  cliffs  that  are 
smothered  in  vines  and  foliage,  and  around  the 
edges  of  bottomless  chasms;  and  all  the  way  one 

210 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

glides  by  files  of  picturesque  natives,  some  carrying 
burdens  up,  others  going  down  from  their  work  in 
the  tea-gardens;  and  once  there  was  a  gaudy  wed 
ding  procession,  all  bright  tinsel  and  color,  and  a 
bride,  comely  and  girlish,  who  peeped  out  from  the 
curtains  of  her  palanquin,  exposing  her  face  with 
that  pure  delight  which  the  young  and  happy  take 
in  sin  for  sin's  own  sake. 

By  and  by  we  were  well  up  in  the  region  of  the 
clouds,  and  from  that  breezy  height  we  looked  down 
and  afar  over  a  wonderful  picture — the  Plains  of 
India,  stretching  to  the  horizon,  soft  and  fair,  level 
as  a  floor,  shimmering  with  heat,  mottled  with  cloud- 
shadows,  and  cloven  with  shining  rivers.  Imme 
diately  below  us,  and  receding  down,  down,  down, 
toward  the  valley,  was  a  shaven  confusion  of  hill 
tops,  with  ribbony  roads  and  paths  squirming  and 
snaking  cream-yellow  all  over  them  and  about  them, 
every  curve  and  twist  sharply  distinct. 

At  an  elevation  of  6,000  feet  we  entered  a  thick 
cloud,  and  it  shut  out  the  world  and  kept  it  shut 
out.  We  climbed  1,000  feet  higher,  then  began  to 
descend,  and  presently  got  down  to  Darjeeling, 
which  is  6,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Plains. 

We  had  passed  many  a  mountain  village  on  the 
way  up,  and  seen  some  new  kinds  of  natives,  among 
them  many  samples  of  the  fighting  Ghurkas.  They 
are  not  large  men,  but  they  are  strong  and  resolute. 
There  are  no  better  soldiers  among  Britain's  native 
troops.  And  we  had  passed  shoals  of  their  women 
climbing  the  forty  miles  of  steep  road  from  the 
valley  to  their  mountain  homes,  with  tall  baskets  on 

211 


MARK    TWAIN 

their  backs  hitched  to  their  foreheads  by  a  band, 
and  containing  a  freightage  weighing — I  will  not 
say  how  many  hundreds  of  pounds,  for  the  sum  is 
unbelievable.  These  were  young  women,  and  they 
strode  smartly  along  under  these  astonishing  bur 
dens  with  the  air  of  people  out  for  a  holiday.  I 
was  told  that  a  woman  will  carry  a  piano  on  her 
back  all  the  way  up  the  mountain;  and  that  more 
than  once  a  woman  had  done  it.  If  these  were  old 
women  I  should  regard  the  Ghurkas  as  no  more 
civilized  than  the  Europeans. 

At  the  railway  -  station  at  Darjeeling  you  find 
plenty  of  cab-substitutes — open  coffins,  in  which 
you  sit,  and  are  then  borne  on  men's  shoulders  up 
the  steep  roads  into  the  town. 

Up  there  we  found  a  fairly  comfortable  hotel,  the 
property  of  an  indiscriminate  and  incoherent  land 
lord,  who  looks  after  nothing,  but  leaves  everything 
to  his  army  of  Indian  servants.  No,  he  does  look 
after  the  bill — to  be  just  to  him — and  the  tourist 
cannot  do  better  than  follow  his  example.  I  was 
told  by  a  resident  that  the  summit  of  Kinchin junga 
is  often  hidden  in  the  clouds,  and  that  sometimes 
a  tourist  has  waited  twenty-two  days,  and  then 
been  obliged  to  go  away  without  a  sight  of  it.  And 
yet  went  not  disappointed;  for  when  he  got  his 
hotel  bill  he  recognized  that  he  was  now  seeing  the 
highest  thing  in  the  Himalayas.  But  this  is  probably 
a  lie. 

After  lecturing  I  went  to  the  Club  that  night,  and 
that  was  a  comfortable  place.  It  is  loftily  situated, 
and  looks  out  over  a  vast  spread  of  scenery;  from 

212 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

it  you  can  see  where  the  boundaries  of  three  coun 
tries  come  together,  some  thirty  miles  away ;  Thibet 
is  one  of  them,  Nepaul  another,  and  I  think  Herzego 
vina  was  the  other.  Apparently,  in  every  town 
and  city  in  India  the  gentlemen  of  the  British 
civil  and  military  service  have  a  club ;  sometimes  it 
is  a  palatial  one,  always  it  is  pleasant  and  homelike. 
The  hotels  are  not  always  as  good  as  they  might 
be,  and  the  stranger  who  has  access  to  the  Club  is 
grateful  for  his  privilege  and  knows  how  to  value  it. 

Next  day  was  Sunday.  Friends  came  in  the  gray 
dawn  with  horses,  and  my  party  rode  away  to  a  dis 
tant  point  where  Kinchinjunga  and  Mount  Everest 
show  up  best,  but  I  stayed  at  home  for  a  private 
view ;  for  it  was  very  cold,  and  I  was  not  acquainted 
with  the  horses,  anyway.  I  got  a  pipe  and  a  few 
blankets  and  sat  for  two  hours  at  the  window,  and 
saw  the  sun  drive  away  the  veiling  gray  and  touch 
up  the  snow-peaks  one  after  another  with  pale  pink 
splashes  and  delicate  washes  of  gold,  and  finally 
flood  the  whole  mighty  convulsion  of  snow-mountains 
with  a  deluge  of  rich  splendors. 

Kinehinjunga's  peak  was  but  fitfully  visible,  but 
in  the  betweentimes  it  was  vividly  clear  against  the 
sky — away  up  there  in  the  blue  dome  more  than 
28,000  feet  above  sea-level — the  loftiest  land  I  had 
ever  seen,  by  12,000  feet  or  more.  It  was  45  miles 
away.  Mount  Everest  is  a  thousand  feet  higher, 
but  it  was  not  a  part  of  that  sea  of  mountains  piled 
up  there  before  me,  so  I  did  not  see  it;  but  I  did 
not  care,  because  I  think  that  mountains  that  are  as 
high  as  that  are  disagreeable. 

213 


MARK    TWAIN 

I  changed  from  the  back  to  the  front  of  the  house 
and  spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  there,  watching 
the  swarthy  strange  tribes  flock  by  from  their  far 
homes  in  the  Himalayas.  All  ages  and  both  sexes 
were  represented,  and  the  breeds  were  quite  new  to 
me,  though  the  costumes  of  the  Thibetans  made 
them  look  a  good  deal  like  Chinamen.  The  prayer- 
wheel  was  a  frequent  feature.  It  brought  me  near 
to  these  people  and  made  them  seem  kinfolk  of 
mine.  Through  our  preacher  we  do  much  of  our 
praying  by  proxy.  We  do  not  whirl  him  around  a 
stick,  as  they  do,  but  that  is  merely  a  detail.  The 
swarm  swung  briskly  by,  hour  after  hour,  a  strange 
and  striking  pageant.  It  was  wasted  there,  and  it 
seemed  a  pity.  It  should  have  been  sent  streaming 
through  the  cities  of  Europe  or  America,  to  refresh 
eyes  weary  of  the  pale  monotonies  of  the  circus 
pageant.  These  people  were  bound  for  the  bazar, 
with  things  to  sell.  We  went  down  there,  later,  and 
saw  that  novel  congress  of  the  wild  peoples,  and 
plowed  here  and  there  through  it,  and  concluded 
that  it  would  be  worth  coming  from  Calcutta  to  see, 
even  if  there  were  no  Kinchinjunga  and  Everest. 


214 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  DELIGHT 

There  are  two  times  in  a  man's  life  when  he  should  not  speculate:    when  he 
can't  afford  it,  and  when  he  can. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

ON  Monday  and  Tuesday  at  sunrise  we  again  had 
fair-to-middling  views  of  the  stupendous  moun 
tains;  then,  being  well  cooled  off  and  refreshed,  we 
were  ready  to  chance  the  weather  of  the  lower  world 
once  more. 

We  traveled  uphill  by  the  regular  train  five  miles 
to  the  summit,  then  changed  to  a  little  canvas- 
canopied  hand-car  for  the  thirty-five-mile  descent. 
It  was  the  size  of  a  sleigh,  it  had  six  seats  and  was  so 
low  that  it  seemed  to  rest  on  the  ground.  It  had  no 
engine  or  other  propelling  power,  and  needed  none 
to  help  it  fly  down  those  steep  inclines.  It  only 
needed  a  strong  brake  to  modify  its  flight,  and  it 
had  that.  There  was  a  story  of  a  disastrous  trip 
made  down  the  mountain  once  in  this  little  car  by 
the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  when  the  car 
jumped  the  track  and  threw  its  passengers  over  a 
precipice.  It  was  not  true,  but  the  story  had  value 
for  me,  for  it  made  me  nervous,  and  nervousness 
wakes  a  person  up  and  makes  him  alive  and  alert, 
and  heightens  the  thrill  of  a  new  and  doubtful  ex 
perience.  The  car  could  really  jump  the  track,  of 
course;  a  pebble  on  the  track,  placed  there  by 

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MARK     TWAIN 

either  accident  or  malice,  at  a  sharp  curve  where 
one  might  strike  it  before  the  eye  could  discover  it, 
could  derail  the  car  and  fling  it  down  into  India; 
and  the  fact  that  the  Lieutenant-Governor  had  es 
caped  was  no  proof  that  I  would  have  the  same 
luck.  And  standing  there,  looking  down  upon  the 
Indian  Empire  from  the  airy  altitude  of  seven  thou 
sand  feet,  it  seemed  unpleasantly  far,  dangerously 
far,  to  be  flung  from  a  hand-car. 

But  after  all,  there  was  but  small  danger — for 
me.  What  there  was,  was  for  Mr.  Pugh,  inspector 
of  a  division  of  the  Indian  police,  in  whose  company 
and  protection  we  had  come  from  Calcutta.  He 
had  seen  long  service  as  an  artillery  officer,  was  less 
nervous  than  I  was,  and  so  he  was  to  go  ahead  of 
us  in  a  pilot  hand-car,  with  a  Ghurka  and  another 
native;  and  the  plan  was  that  when  we  should  see 
his  car  jump  over  a  precipice  we  must  put  on  our 
brake  and  send  for  another  pilot.  It  was  a  good 
arrangement.  Also  Mr.  Barnard,  chief  engineer  of 
the  mountain  division  of  the  road,  was  to  take  per 
sonal  charge  of  our  car,  and  he  had  been  down  the 
mountain  in  it  many  a  time. 

Everything  looked  safe.  Indeed,  there  was  but 
one  questionable  detail  left :  the  regular  train  was  to 
follow  us  as  soon  as  we  should  start,  and  it  might 
run  over  us.  Privately,  I  thought  it  would. 

The  road  fell  sharply  down  in  front  of  us  and 
went  corkscrewing  in  and  out  around  the  crags  and 
precipices,  down,  down,  forever  down,  suggesting 
nothing  so  exactly  or  so  uncomfortably  as  a  crooked 
toboggan-slide  with  no  end  to  it.  Mr.  Pugh  waved 

216 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

his  flag  and  started,  like  an  arrow  from  a  bow,  and 
before  I  could  get  out  of  the  car  we  were  gone  too. 
I  had  previously  had  but  one  sensation  like  the 
shock  of  that  departure,  and  that  was  the  gaspy 
shock  that  took  my  breath  away  the  first  time  that  I 
was  discharged  from  the  summit  of  a  toboggan- 
slide.  But  in  both  instances  the  sensation  was 
pleasurable — intensely  so;  it  was  a  sudden  and 
immense  exaltation,  a  mixed  ecstasy  of  deadly  fright 
and  unimaginable  joy.  I  believe  that  this  combina 
tion  makes  the  perfection  of  human  delight. 

The  pilot-car's  flight  down  the  mountain  suggested 
the  swoop  of  a  swallow  that  is  skimming  the  ground, 
so  swiftly  and  smoothly  and  gracefully  it  swept 
down  the  long  straight  reaches  and  soared  in  and 
out  of  the  bends  and  around  the  corners.  We  raced 
after  it,  and  seemed  to  flash  by  the  capes  and  crags 
with  the  speed  of  light ;  and  now  and  then  we  almost 
overtook  it — and  had  hopes;  but  it  was  only  play 
ing  with  us;  when  we  got  near,  it  released  its  brake, 
made  a  spring  around  a  corner,  and  the  next  time 
it  spun  into  view,  a  few  seconds  later,  it  looked  as 
small  as  a  wheelbarrow,  it  was  so  far  away.  We 
played  with  the  train  in  the  same  way.  We  often 
got  out  to  gather  flowers  or  sit  on  a  precipice  and 
look  at  the  scenery,  then  presently  we  would  hear  a 
dull  and  growing  roar,  and  the  long  coils  of  the 
train  would  come  into  sight  behind  and  above  us; 
but  we  did  not  need  to  start  till  the  locomotive  was 
close  down  upon  us — then  we  soon  left  it  far  behind. 
It  had  to  stop  at  every  station,  therefore  it  was 
not  an  embarrassment  to  us.  Our  brake  was  a 

217 


MARK    TWAIN 

good  piece  of  machinery;  it  could  bring  the  car  to 
a  standstill  on  a  slope  as  steep  as  a  house-roof. 

The  scenery  was  grand  and  varied  and  beautiful, 
and  there  was  no  hurry;  we  could  always  stop  and 
examine  it.  There  was  abundance  of  time.  We  did 
not  need  to  hamper  the  train;  if  it  wanted  the  road, 
we  could  switch  off  and  let  it  go  by,  then  overtake 
it  and  pass  it  later.  We  stopped  at  one  place  to  see 
the  Gladstone  'Cliff,  a  great  crag  which  the  ages  and 
the  weather  have  sculptured  into  a  recognizable 
portrait  of  the  venerable  statesman.  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  a  stockholder  in  the  road,  and  Nature  began  this 
portrait  ten  thousand  years  ago,  with  the  idea  of 
having  the  compliment  ready  in  time  for  the  event. 

We  saw  a  banyan  tree  which  sent  down  support 
ing  stems  from  branches  which  were  sixty  feet  above 
the  ground.  That  is,  I  suppose  it  was  a  banyan; 
its  bark  resembled  that  of  the  great  banyan  in  the 
botanical  gardens  at  Calcutta,  that  spider-legged 
thing  with  its  wilderness  of  vegetable  columns.  And 
there  were  frequent  glimpses  of  a  totally  leafless  tree 
upon  whose  innumerable  twigs  and  branches  a  cloud 
of  crimson  butterflies  had  lighted — apparently.  In 
fact  these  brilliant  red  butterflies  were  flowers,  but 
the  illusion  was  good.  Afterward  in  South  Africa, 
I  saw  another  splendid  effect  made  by  red  flowers. 
This  flower  was  probably  called  the  torchplant — 
should  have  been  so  named,  anyway.  It  had  a 
slender  stem  several  feet  high,  and  from  its  top 
stood  up  a  single  tongue  of  flame,  an  intensely  red 
flower  of  the  size  and  shape  of  a  small  corn-cob. 
The  stems  stood  three  or  four  feet  apart  all  over  a 

218 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

great  hill-slope  that  was  a  mile  long,  and  made  one 
think  of  what  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  would  be  if 
its  myriad  lights  were  red  instead  of  white  and 
yellow. 

A  few  miles  down  the  mountain  we  stopped  half 
an  hour  to  see  a  Thibetan  dramatic  performance.  It 
was  in  the  open  air  on  the  hillside.  The  audience 
was  composed  of  Thibetans,  Ghurkas,  and  other 
unusual  people.  The  costumes  of  the  actors  were 
in  the  last  degree  outlandish,  and  the  performance 
was  in  keeping  with  the  clothes.  To  an  accompani 
ment  of  barbarous  noises  the  actors  stepped  out 
one  after  another  and  began  to  spin  around  with 
immense  swiftness  and  vigor  and  violence,  chanting 
the  while,  and  soon  the  whole  troupe  would  be  spin 
ning  and  chanting  and  raising  the  dust.  They  were 
performing  an  ancient  and  celebrated  historical  play, 
and  a  Chinaman  explained  it  to  me  in  pidjin  English 
as  it  went  along.  The  play  was  obscure  enough 
without  the  explanation;  with  the  explanation  added, 
it  was  opaque.  As  a  drama  this  ancient  historical 
work  of  art  was  defective,  I  thought,  but  as  a  wild 
and  barbarous  spectacle  the  representation  was  be 
yond  criticism. 

Far  down  the  mountain  we  got  out  to  look  at  a 
piece  of  remarkable  loop-engineering — a  spiral  where 
the  road  curves  upon  itself  with  such  abruptness 
that  when  the  regular  train  came  down  and  entered 
the  loop,  we  stood  over  it  and  saw  the  locomotive 
disappear  under  our  bridge,  then  in  a  few  moments 
appear  again,  chasing  its  own  tail;  and  we  saw  it 
gain  on  it,  overtake  it,  draw  ahead  past  the  rear 

219 


MARK     TWAIN 

cars,  and  run  a  race  with  that  end  of  the  train.  It 
was  like  a  snake  swallowing  itself. 

Half-way  down  the  mountain  we  stopped  about 
an  hour  at  Mr.  Barnard's  house  for  refreshments, 
and  while  we  were  sitting  on  the  veranda  looking  at 
the  distant  panorama  of  hills  through  a  gap  in  the 
forest,  we  came  very  near  seeing  a  leopard  kill  a 
calf.1  It  is  a  wild  place  and  lovely.  From  the 
woods  all  about  came  the  songs  of  birds — among 
them  the  contributions  of  a  couple  of  birds  which  I 
was  not  then  acquainted  with:  the  brain-fever  bird 
and  the  coppersmith.  The  song  of  the  brain-fever 
demon  starts  on  a  low  but  steadily  rising  key,  and 
is  a  spiral  twist  which  augments  in  intensity  and 
severity  with  each  added  spiral,  growing  sharper  and 
sharper,  and  more  and  more  painful,  more  and  more 
agonizing,  more  and  more  maddening,  intolerable, 
unendurable,  as  it  bores  deeper  and  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  listener's  brain,  until  at  last  the 
brain-fever  comes  as  a  relief  and  the  man  dies.  I 
am  bringing  some  of  these  birds  home  to  America. 
They  will  be  a  great  curiosity  there,  and  it  is  believed 
that  in  our  climate  they  will  multiply  like  rabbits. 

The  coppersmith  bird's  note  at  a  certain  distance 
away  has  the  ring  of  a  sledge  on  granite;  at  a  certain 
other  distance  the  hammering  has  a  more  metallic 
ring,  and  you  might  think  that  the  bird  was  mending 
a  copper  kettle;  at  another  distance  it  has  a  more 
woodeny  thump,  but  it  is  a  thump  that  is  full  of 
energy,  and  sounds  just  like  starting  a  bung.  So 
he  is  a  hard  bird  to  name  with  a  single  name;  he  is 

1  It  killed  it  the  day  before. 
220 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

a  stone-breaker,  coppersmith,  and  bung-starter,  and 
even  then  he  is  not  completely  named,  for  when 
he  is  close  by  you  find  that  there  is  a  soft,  deep, 
melodious  quality  in  his  thump,  and  for  that  no 
satisfying  name  occurs  to  you.  You  will  not  mind 
his  other  notes,  but  when  he  camps  near  enough  for 
you  to  hear  that  one,  you  presently  find  that  his 
measured  and  monotonous  repetition  of  it  is  begin 
ning  to  disturb  you;  next  it  will  weary  you,  soon  it 
will  distress  you,  and  before  long  each  thump  will 
hurt  your  head;  if  this  goes  on,  you  will  lose  your 
mind  with  the  pain  and  misery  of  it,  and  go  crazy. 
I  am  bringing  some  of  these  birds  home  to  America. 
There  is  nothing  like  them  there.  They  will  be  a 
great  surprise,  and  it  is  said  that  in  a  climate  like 
ours  they  will  surpass  expectation  for  fecundity. 

I  am  bringing  some  nightingales,  too,  and  some 
cue-owls.  I  got  them  in  Italy.  The  song  of  the 
nightingale  is  the  deadliest  known  to  ornithology. 
That  demoniacal  shriek  can  kill  at  thirty  yards.  The 
note  of  the  cue-owl  is  infinitely  soft  and  sweet — 
soft  and  sweet  as  the  whisper  of  a  flute.  But  pene 
trating — oh,  beyond  belief;  it  can  bore  through 
boiler-iron.  It  is  a  lingering  note,  and  comes  in 
triplets,  on  the  one  unchanging  key :  hoo-o-o,  hoo-o-o  t 
hoo-o-o;  then  a  silence  of  fifteen  seconds,  then  the 
triplet  again;  and  so  on,  all  night.  At  first  it  is 
divine;  then  less  so;  then  trying;  then  distressing; 
then  excruciating;  then  agonizing,  and  at  the  end 
of  two  hours  the  listener  is  a  maniac. 

And  so,  presently,  we  took  to  the  hand-car  and 
went  flying  down  the  mountain  again;  flying  and 

221 


MARK    TWAIN 

stopping,  flying  and  stopping,  till  at  last  we  were  in 
the  plain  once  more  and  stowed  for  Calcutta  in  the 
regular  train.  That  was  the  most  enjoyable  day  I 
have  spent  in  the  earth.  For  rousing,  tingling,  rap 
turous  pleasure  there  is  no  holiday  trip  that  ap 
proaches  the  bird-flight  down  the  Himalayas  in  a 
hand-car.  It  has  no  fault,  no  blemish,  no  lack, 
except  that  there  are  only  thirty-five  miles  of  it 
instead  of  five  hundred. 


222 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE   SNAKE  AND  TIGER  DEATH-ROLL 

She  was  not  quite  what  you  would  call  refined.    She  was  not  quite  what  yon 
would  call  unrefined.     She  was  the  kind  of  person  that  keeps  a  parrot. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

SO  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  nothing  has  been 
left  undone,  either  by  man  or  Nature,  to  make 
India  the  most  extraordinary  country  that  the  sun 
visits  on  his  round.  Nothing  seems  to  have  been 
forgotten,  nothing  overlooked.  Always,  when  you 
think  you  have  come  to  the  end  of  her  tremendous 
specialties  and  have  finished  hanging  tags  upon  her 
as  the  Land  of  the  Thug,  the  Land  of  the  Plague, 
the  Land  of  Famine,  the  Land  of  Giant  Illusions, 
the  Land  of  Stupendous  Mountains,  and  so  forth, 
another  specialty  crops  up  and  another  tag  is  re 
quired.  I  have  been  overlooking  the  fact  that  India 
is  by  an  unapproachable  supremacy — the  Land  of 
Murderous  Wild  Creatures.  Perhaps  it  will  be 
simplest  to  throw  away  the  tags  and  generalize  her 
with  one  all-comprehensive  name,  as  the  Land  of 
Wonders. 

For  many  years  the  British  Indian  Government 
has  been  trying  to  destroy  the  murderous  wild  crea 
tures,  and  has  spent  a  great  deal  of  money  in  the 
effort.  The  annual  official  returns  show  that  the 
undertaking  is  a  difficult  one. 

These  returns  exhibit  a  curious  annual  uniformity 
223 


MARK     TWAIN 

in  results;  the  sort  of  uniformity  which  you  find  in 
the  annual  output  of  suicides  in  the  world's  capitals, 
and  the  proportions  of  deaths  by  this,  that,  and  the 
other  disease.  You  can  always  come  close  to  fore 
telling  how  many  suicides  will  occur  in  Paris,  Lon 
don,  and  New  York,  next  year,  and  also  how  many 
deaths  will  result  from  cancer,  consumption,  dog- 
bite,  falling  out  of  the  window,  getting  run  over  by 
cabs,  etc.,  if  you  know  the  statistics  of  those  matters 
for  the  present  year.  In  the  same  way,  with  one 
year's  Indian  statistics  before  you,  you  can  guess 
closely  at  how  many  people  were  killed  in  that 
Empire  by  tigers  during  the  previous  year,  and  the 
year  before  that,  and  the  year  before  that,  and  at 
how  many  were  killed  in  each  of  those  years  by 
bears,  how  many  by  wolves,  and  how  many  by 
snakes ;  and  you  can  also  guess  closely  at  how  many 
people  are  going  to  be  killed  each  year  for  the  coming 
five  years  by  each  of  those  agencies.  You  can  also 
guess  closely  at  how  many  of  each  agency  the 
government  is  going  to  kill  each  year  for  the  next 
five  years. 

I  have  before  me  statistics  covering  a  period  of 
six  consecutive  years.  By  these,  I  know  that  in 
India  the  tiger  kills  something  over  800  persons 
every  year,  and  that  the  government  responds  by 
killing  about  double  as  many  tigers  every  year.  In 
four  of  the  six  years  referred  to,  the  tiger  got  800 
odd;  in  one  of  the  remaining  two  years  he  got  only 
700,  but  in  the  other  remaining  year  he  made  his 
average  good  by  scoring  917.  He  is  always  sure  of 
his  average.  Any  one  who  bets  that  the  tiger  will 

224 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

kill  2,400  people  in  India  in  any  three  consecutive 
years  has  invested  his  money  in  a  certainty;  any 
one  who  bets  that  he  will  kill  2,600  in  any  three 
consecutive  years,  is  absolutely  sure  to  lose. 

Strikingly  uniform  as  are  the  statistics  of  suicide, 
they  are  not  any  more  so  than  are  those  of  the 
tiger's  annual  output  of  slaughtered  human  beings 
in  India.  The  government's  work  is  quite  uniform, 
too;  it  about  doubles  the  tiger's  average.  In  six 
years  the  tiger  killed  5,000  persons,  minus  50;  in  the 
same  six  years  10,000  tigers  were  killed,  minus  400. 

The  wolf  kills  nearly  as  many  people  as  the  tiger — 
700  a  year  to  the  tiger's  800  odd — but  while  he  is 
doing  it,  more  than  5,000  of  his  tribe  fall. 

The  leopard  kills  an  average  of  230  people  per 
year,  but  loses  3,300  of  his  own  mess  while  he  is 
doing  it. 

The  bear  kills  100  people  per  year  at  a  cost  of 
1,250  of  his  own  tribe. 

The  tiger,  as  the  figures  show,  makes  a  very 
handsome  fight  against  man.  But  it  is  nothing  to 
the  elephant's  fight.  The  king  of  beasts,  the  lord 
of  the  jungle,  loses  four  of  his  mess  per  year,  but 
he  kills  forty- five  persons  to  make  up  for  it. 

But  when  it  comes  to  killing  cattle,  the  lord  of 
the  jungle  is  not  interested.  He  kills  but  100  in  six 
years — horses  of  hunters,  no  doubt — but  in  the 
same  six  the  tiger  kills  more  than  84,000,  the  leopard 
100,000,  the  bear  4,000,  the  wolf  70,000,  the  hyena 
more  than  13,000,  other  wild  beasts  27,000,  and  the 
snakes  19,000,  a  grand  total  of  more  than  300,000; 
an  average  of  50,000  head  per  year. 

225 


MARK    TWAIN 

In  response,  the  government  kills,  in  the  six 
years,  a  total  of  3,201,232  wild  beasts  and  snakes. 
Ten  for  one. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  snakes  are  not  much 
interested  in  cattle;  they  kill  only  3,000  odd  per 
year.  The  snakes  are  much  more  interested  in  man. 
India  swarms  with  deadly  snakes.  At  the  head  of 
the  list  is  the  cobra,  the  deadliest  known  to  the 
world,  a  snake  whose  bite  kills  where  the  rattle 
snake's  bite  merely  entertains. 

In  India,  the  annual  man-killings  by  snakes  are  as 
uniform,  as  regular,  and  as  forecastable  as  are  the 
tiger  average  and  the  suicide  average.  Any  one  who 
bets  that  in  India,  in  any  three  consecutive  years, 
the  snakes  will  kill  49,500  persons,  will  win  his  bet; 
and  any  one  who  bets  that  in  India  in  any  three 
consecutive  years  the  snakes  will  kill  53,500  persons, 
will  lose  his  bet.  In  India  the  snakes  kill  17,000 
people  a  year;  they  hardly  ever  fall  short  of  it; 
they  as  seldom  exceed  it.  An  insurance  actuary 
could  take  the  Indian  census  tables  and  the  govern 
ment's  snake  tables  and  tell  you  within  sixpence 
how  much  it  would  be  worth  to  insure  a  man  against 
death  by  snake-bite  there.  If  I  had  a  dollar  for 
every  person  killed  per  year  in  India,  I  would  rather 
have  it  than  any  other  property,  as  it  is  the  only 
property  in  the  world  not  subject  to  shrinkage. 

I  should  like  to  have  a  royalty  on  the  government 
end  of  the  snake  business,  too,  and  am  in  London 
now  trying  to  get  it;  but  when  I  get  it  it  is  not 
going  to  be  as  regular  an  income  as  the  other  will 
be  if  I  get  that;  I  have  applied  for  it;.  The  snakes 

226 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

transact  their  end  of  the  business  in  a  more  orderly 
and  systematic  way  than  the  government  transacts 
its  end  of  it,  because  the  snakes  have  had  a  long 
experience  and  know  all  about  the  traffic.  You  can 
make  sure  that  the  government  will  never  kill  fewer 
than  110,000  snakes  in  a  year,  and  that  it  will  never 
quite  reach  300,000 — too  much  room  for  oscillation; 
good  speculative  stock,  to  bear  or  bull,  and  buy 
and  sell  long  and  short,  and  all  that  kind  of  thing, 
but  not  eligible  for  investment  like  the  other.  The 
man  that  speculates  in  the  government's  snake 
crop  wants  to  go  carefully.  I  would  not  advise  a 
man  to  buy  a  single  crop  at  all — I  mean  a  crop  of 
futures — for  the  possible  wabble  is  something  quite 
extraordinary.  If  he  can  buy  six  future  crops  in  a 
bunch,  seller  to  deliver  1,500,000  altogether,  that  is 
another  matter.  I  do  not  know  what  snakes  are 
worth  now,  but  I  know  what  they  would  be  worth 
then,  for  the  statistics  show  that  the  seller  could  not 
come  within  427,000  of  carrying  out  his  contract. 
However,  I  think  that  a  person  who  speculates  in  snakes 
is  a  fool,  anyway.  He  always  regrets  it  afterward. 

To  finish  the  statistics.  In  six  years  the  wild 
beasts  kill  20,000  persons,  and  the  snakes  kill 
103,000.  In  the  same  six  the  government  kills 
1,073,546  snakes.  Plenty  left. 

There  are  narrow  escapes  in  India.  In  the  very 
jungle  where  I  killed  sixteen  tigers  and  all  those 
elephants,  a  cobra  bit  me,  but  it  got  well;  every  one 
was  surprised.  This  could  not  happen  twice  in  ten 
years,  perhaps.  Usually  death  would  result  in  fifteen 
minutes. 

227 


MARK     TWAIN 

We  struck  out  westward  or  northwestward  from 
Calcutta  on  an  itinerary  of  a  zigzag  sort,  which 
would  in  the  course  of  time  carry  us  across  India  to 
its  northwestern  corner  and  the  border  of  Afghani 
stan.  The  first  part  of  the  trip  carried  us  through  a 
great  region  which  was  an  endless  garden — miles 
and  miles  of  the  beautiful  flower  from  whose  juices 
comes  the  opium,  and  at  Muzaffurpore  we  were  in 
the  midst  of  the  indigo  culture;  thence  by  a  branch 
road  to  the  Ganges  at  a  point  near  Dinapore,  and 
by  a  train  which  would  have  missed  the  connection 
by  a  week  but  for  the  thoughtfulness  of  some  British 
officers  who  were  along,  and  who  knew  the  ways  of 
trains  that  are  run  by  natives  without  white  super 
vision.  This  train  stopped  at  every  village;  for  no 
purpose  connected  with  business,  apparently.  We 
put  out  nothing,  we  took  nothing  aboard.  The  tram- 
hands  stepped  ashore  and  gossiped  with  friends  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  then  pulled  out  and  repeated 
this  at  the  succeeding  villages.  We  had  thirty-five 
miles  to  go  and  six  hours  to  do  it  in,  but  it  was 
plain  that  we  were  not  going  to  make  it.  It  was 
then  that  the  English  officers  said  it  was  now  neces 
sary  to  turn  this  gravel-train  into  an  express.  So 
they  gave  the  engine-driver  a  rupee  and  told  him  to 
fly.  It  was  a  simple  remedy.  After  that  we  made 
ninety  miles  an  hour.  We  crossed  the  Ganges  just 
at  dawn,  made  our  connection,  and  went  to  Benares, 
where  we  stayed  twenty-four  hours  and  inspected 
that  strange  and  fascinating  piety-hive  again;  then 
left  for  Lucknow,  a  city  which  is  perhaps  the  most 
conspicuous  of  the  many  monuments  of  British 

228 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

fortitude  and  valor  that  are  scattered  about  the 
earth. 

The  heat  was  pitiless,  the  flat  plains  were  destitute 
of  grass,  and,  baked  dry  by  the  sun,  they  were  the 
color  of  pale  dust,  which  was  flying  in  clouds.  But 
it  was  much  hotter  than  this  when  the  relieving 
forces  marched  to  Lucknow  in  the  time  of  the 
Mutiny.  Those  were  the  days  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  degrees  in  the  shade. 


229 


CHAPTER  XXII 

FRIGHTFUL  DAYS  OF  THE  MUTINY 

Make  it  a  point  to  do  something  every  day  that  you  don't  want  to  do.    This  la 
the  golden  rule  for  acquiring  the  habit  of  doing  your  duty  without  pain. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

IT  seems  to  be  settled,  now,  that  among  the  many 
causes  from  which  the  Great  Mutiny  sprang,  the 
main  one  was  the  annexation  of  the  kingdom  of 
Oudh  by  the  East  India  Company — characterized 
by  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  as  ''the  most  unrighteous 
act  that  was  ever  committed."  In  the  spring  of 
1857,  a  mutinous  spirit  was  observable  in  many  of 
the  native  garrisons,  and  it  grew  day  by  day  and 
spread  wider  and  wider.  The  younger  military  men 
saw  something  very  serious  in  it,  and  would  have 
liked  to  take  hold  of  it  vigorously  and  stamp  it  out 
promptly ;  but  they  were  not  in  authority.  Old  men 
were  in  the  high  places  of  the  army — men  who 
should  have  been  retired  long  before,  because  of 
their  great  age — and  they  regarded  the  matter  as  a 
thing  of  no  consequence.  They  loved  their  native 
soldiers,  and  would  not  believe  that  anything  could 
move  them  to  revolt.  Everywhere  these  obstinate 
veterans  listened  serenely  to  the  rumbling  of  the 
volcanoes  under  them,  and  said  it  was  nothing. 

And  so  the  propagators  of  mutiny  had  everything 
their  own  way.  They  moved  from  camp  to  camp 
undisturbed,  and  painted  to  the  native  soldier  the 

230 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

wrongs  his  people  were  suffering  at  the  hands  of  the 
English,  and  made  his  heart  burn  for  revenge.  They 
were  able  to  point  to  two  facts  of  formidable  value 
as  backers  of  their  persuasions:  In  dive's  day, 
native  armies  were  incoherent  mobs,  and  without 
effective  arms;  therefore,  they  were  weak  against 
Clive's  organized  handful  of  well-armed  men,  but 
the  thing  was  the  other  way,  now.  The  British 
forces  were  native;  they  had  been  trained  by  the 
British,  organized  by  the  British,  armed  by  the 
British,  all  the  power  was  in  their  hands — they  were 
a  club  made  by  British  hands  to  beat  out  British 
brains  with.  There  was  nothing  to  oppose  their 
mass,  nothing  but  a  few  weak  battalions  of  British 
soldiers  scattered  about  India,  a  force  not  worth 
speaking  of.  This  argument,  taken  alone,  might 
not  have  succeeded,  for  the  bravest  and  best  Indian 
troops  had  a  wholesome  dread  of  the  white  soldier, 
whether  he  was  weak  or  strong;  but  the  agitators 
backed  it  with  their  second  and  best  point — prophecy 
— a  prophecy  a  hundred  years  old.  The  Indian  is 
open  to  prophecy  at  all  times;  argument  may  fail  to 
convince  him,  but  not  prophecy.  There  was  a 
prophecy  that  a  hundred  years  from  the  year  of 
that  battle  of  Clive's  which  founded  the  British 
Indian  Empire,  the  British  power  would  be  over 
thrown  and  swept  away  by  the  natives. 

The  Mutiny  broke  out  at  Meerut  on  the  loth  of 
May,  1857,  and  fired  a  train  of  tremendous  historical 
explosions.  Nana  Sahib's  massacre  of  the  surren 
dered  garrison  of  Cawnpore  occurred  in  June,  and 
the  long  siege  of  Lucknow  began.  The  military 

231 


MARK     TWAIN 

history  of  England  is  old  and  great,  but  I  think  it 
must  be  granted  that  the  crushing  of  the  Mutiny  is 
the  greatest  chapter  in  it.  The  British  were  caught 
asleep  and  unprepared.  They  were  a  few  thousands, 
swallowed  up  in  an  ocean  of  hostile  populations.  It 
would  take  months  to  inform  England  and  get  help, 
but  they  did  not  falter  or  stop  to  count  the  odds, 
but  with  English  resolution  and  English  devotion 
they  took  up  their  task,  and  went  stubbornly  on  with 
it,  through  good  fortune  and  bad,  and  fought  the 
most  unpromising  fight  that  one  may  read  of  in 
fiction  or  out  of  it,  and  won  it  thoroughly. 

The  Mutiny  broke  out  so  suddenly  and  spread 
with  such  rapidity  that  there  was  but  little  time  for 
occupants  of  weak  outlying  stations  to  escape  to 
places  of  safety.  Attempts  were  made,  of  course, 
but  they  were  attended  by  hardships  as  bitter  as 
death  in  the  few  cases  which  were  successful;  for 
the  heat  ranged  between  one  hundred  and  twenty 
and  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  in  the  shade; 
the  way  led  through  hostile  peoples,  and  food  and 
water  were  hardly  to  be  had.  For  ladies  and  chil 
dren  accustomed  to  ease  and  comfort  and  plenty, 
such  a  journey  must  have  been  a  cruel  experience. 
Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan  quotes  an  example: 

This  is  what  befell  Mrs.  M ,  the  wife  of  the  surgeon  at  a 

certain  station  on  the  southern  confines  of  the  insurrection.  "I 
heard,"  she  says,  "a  number  of  shots  fired,  and,  looking  out,  I 
saw  my  husband  driving  furiously  from  the  mess-house,  waving 
his  whip.  I  ran  to  him,  and,  seeing  a  bearer  with  my  child  in 
his  arms,  I  caught  her  up,  and  got  into  the  buggy.  At  the 
mess-house  we  found  all  the  officers  assembled,  together  with 
sixty  sepoys,  who  had  remained  faithful.  We  went  off  in  one 

232 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

large  party,  amidst  a  general  conflagration  of  our  late  homes. 
We  reached  the  caravanserai  at  Chattapore  the  next  morning, 
and  thence  started  for  Callinger.  At  this  point  our  sepoy  escort 
deserted  us.  We  were  fired  upon  by  matchlockmen,  and  one 
officer  was  shot  dead.  We  heard,  likewise,  that  the  people 
had  risen  at  Callinger,  so  we  returned  and  walked  back  ten 

miles  that  day.     M and  I  carried  the  child  alternately. 

Presently  Mrs.  Smalley  died  of  sunstroke.  We  had  no  food 
among  us.  An  officer  kindly  lent  us  a  horse.  We  were  very 
faint.  The  Major  died,  and  was  buried;  also  the  Sergeant- 
Major  and  some  women.  The  bandsmen  left  us  on  the  nine 
teenth  of  June.  We  were  fired  at  again  by  matchlockmen,  and 
changed  direction  for  Allahabad.  Our  party  consisted  of  nine 
gentlemen,  two  children,  the  sergeant  and  his  wife.  On  the 
morning  of  the  twentieth,  Captain  Scott  took  Lottie  on  to 
his  horse.  I  was  riding  behind  my  husband,  and  she  was 
so  crushed  between  us.  She  was  two  years  old  on  the  first  of 
the  month.  We  were  both  weak  through  want  of  food  and  the 

effect  of  the  sun.    Lottie  and  I  had  no  head-covering.    M 

had  a  sepoy's  cap  I  found  on  the  ground.  Soon  after  sunrise 
we  were  followed  by  villagers  armed  with  clubs  and  spears. 
One  of  them  struck  Captain  Scott's  horse  on  the  leg.  He  gal 
loped  off  with  Lottie,  and  my  poor  husband  never  saw  his  child 
again.  We  rode  on  several  miles,  keeping  away  from  villages, 

and  then  crossed  the  river.    Our  thirst  was  extreme.    M 

had  dreadful  cramps,  so  that  I  had  to  hold  him  on  the  horse. 
I  was  very  uneasy  about  him.  The  day  before  I  saw  the 
drummer's  wife  eating  chupatties,  and  asked  her  to  give  a  piece 
to  the  child,  which  she  did.  I  now  saw  water  in  a  ravine.  The 

descent  was  steep,  and  our  only  drinking-vessel  was  M 's 

cap.  Our  horse  got  water,  and  I  bathed  my  neck.  I  had  no 
stockings,  and  my  feet  were  torn  and  blistered.  Two  peasants 
came  in  sight,  and  we  were  frightened  and  rode  off.  The 

sergeant  held  our  horse,  and  M put  me  up  and  mounted. 

I  think  he  must  have  got  suddenly  faint,  for  I  fell  and  he  over 
me,  on  the  road,  when  the  horse  started  off.  Some  time  before 
he  said,  and  Barber,  too,  that  he  could  not  live  many  hours. 
I  felt  he  was  dying  before  we  came  to  the  ravine.  He  told  me 
his  wishes  about  his  children  and  myself,  and  took  leave.  My 
brain  seemed  burnt  up.  No  tears  came.  As  soon  as  we  fell, 
the  sergeant  let  go  the  horse,  and  it  went  off;  so  that  escape  was 

233 


MARK    TWAIN 

cut  off.  We  sat  down  on  the  ground  waiting  for  death.  Poor 
fellow!  he  was  very  weak;  his  thirst  was  frightful,  and  I  went 
to  get  him  water.  Some  villagers  came,  and  took  my  rupees 
and  watch.  I  took  off  my  wedding  ring  and  twisted  it  in  my 
hair,  and  replaced  the  guard.  I  tore  off  the  skirt  of  my  dress 
to  bring  water  in,  but  it  was  no  use,  for  when  I  returned  my 
beloved's  eyes  were  fixed,  and  though  I  called  and  tried  to  restore 
him,  and  poured  water  into  his  mouth,  it  only  rattled  in  his 
throat.  He  never  spoke  to  me  again.  I  held  him  in  my  arms 
till  he  sank  gradually  down.  I  felt  frantic,  but  could  not  cry. 
I  was  alone.  I  bound  his  head  and  face  in  my  dress,  for  there 
was  no  earth  to  bury  him.  The  pain  in  my  hands  and  feet  was 
dreadful.  I  went  down  to  the  ravine,  and  sat  in  the  water  on 
a  stone,  hoping  to  get  off  at  night  and  look  for  Lottie.  When  I 
came  back  from  the  water,  I  saw  they  had  not  taken  her  little 
watch,  chain,  and  seals,  so  I  tied  them  under  my  petticoat. 
In  an  hour  about  thirty  villagers  came;  they  dragged  me  out 
of  the  ravine,  and  took  off  my  jacket,  and  found  the  little  chain. 
They  then  dragged  me  to  a  village,  mocking  me  all  the  way, 
and  disputing  as  to  whom  I  was  to  belong  to.  The  whole  popu 
lation  came  to  look  at  me.  I  asked  for  a  bedstead,  and  lay 
down  outside  the  door  of  a  hut.  They  had  a  dozen  of  cows, 
and  yet  refused  me  milk.  When  night  came,  and  the  village 
was  quiet,  some  old  woman  brought  me  a  leafful  of  rice.  I 
was  too  parched  to  eat,  and  they  gave  me  water.  The  morning 
after  a  neighboring  Raja  sent  a  palanquin  and  a  horseman  to 
fetch  me,  who  told  me  that  a  little  child  and  three  Sahibs  had 
come  to  his  master's  house."  And  so  the  poor  mother  found 
her  lost  one,  "greatly  blistered,"  poor  little  creature.  It  is 
not  for  Europeans  in  India  to  pray  that  their  flight  be  not  in 
the  winter. 

In  the  first  days  of  June  the  aged  general,  Sir 
Hugh  Wheeler,  commanding  the  forces  at  Cawnpore, 
was  deserted  by  his  native  troops;  then  he  moved 
out  of  the  fort  and  into  an  exposed  patch  of  open 
flat  ground  and  built  a  four-foot  mud  wall  around 
it.  He  had  with  him  a  few  hundred  white  soldiers 
and  officers,  and  apparently  more  women  and  chil- 

234 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

dren  than  soldiers.  He  was  short  of  provisions, 
short  of  arms,  short  of  ammunition,  short  of  military 
wisdom,  short  of  everything  but  courage  and  devo 
tion  to  duty.  The  defense  of  that  open  lot  through 
twenty-one  days  and  nights  of  hunger,  thirst,  Indian 
heat,  and  a  never-ceasing  storm  of  bullets,  bombs, 
and  cannon-balls — a  defense  conducted,  not  by  the 
aged  and  infirm  general,  but  by  a  young  officer 
named  Moore — is  one  of  the  most  heroic  episodes 
in  history.  When  at  last  the  Nana  found  it  impos 
sible  to  conquer  these  starving  men  and  women  with 
powder  and  ball,  he  resorted  to  treachery,  and  that 
succeeded.  He  agreed  to  supply  them  with  food 
and  send  them  to  Allahabad  in  boats.  Their  mud 
wall  and  their  barracks  were  in  ruins,  their  provisions 
were  at  the  point  of  exhaustion,  they  had  done  all 
that  the  brave  could  do,  they  had  conquered  an 
honorable  compromise,  their  forces  had  been  fear 
fully  reduced  by  casualties  and  by  disease,  they  were 
not  able  to  continue  the  contest  longer.  They  came 
forth  helpless  but  suspecting  no  treachery,  the 
Nana's  host  closed  around  them,  and  at  a  signal 
from  a  trumpet  the  massacre  began.  About  two 
hundred  women  and  children  were  spared — for  the 
present — but  all  the  men  except  three  or  four  were 
killed.  Among  the  incidents  of  the  massacre  quoted 
by  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan,  is  this: 

When,  after  the  lapse  of  some  twenty  minutes,  the  dead  began 
to  outnumber  the  living; — when  the  fire  slackened,  as  the  marks 
grew  few  and  far  between;  then  the  troopers  who  had  been 
drawn  up  to  the  right  of  the  temple  plunged  into  the  river, 
saber  between  teeth,  and  pistol  in  hand.  Thereupon  two  half- 
caste  Christian  women,  the  wives  of  musicians  in  the  band  of 

235 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  Fifty-sixth,  witnessed  a  scene  which  should  not  be  related 
at  second  hand.  "In  the  boat  where  I  was  to  have  gone," 
says  Mrs.  Bradshaw,  confirmed  throughout  by  Mrs.  Setts,  "was 
the  schoolmistress  and  twenty-two  misses.  General  Wheeler 
came  last  in  a  palkee.  They  carried  him  into  the  water  near 
the  boat.  I  stood  close  by.  He  said, '  Carry  me  a  little  further 
toward  the  boat.'  But  a  trooper  said,  'No,  get  out  here/  As 
the  General  got  out  of  the  palkee,  head  foremost,  the  trooper 
gave  him  a  cut  with  his  sword  into  the  neck,  and  he  fell  into 
the  water.  My  son  was  killed  near  him.  I  saw  it;  alas!  alas! 
Some  were  stabbed  with  bayonets;  others  cut  down.  Little 
infants  were  torn  in  pieces.  We  saw  it;  we  did;  and  tell  you 
only  what  we  saw.  Other  children  were  stabbed  and  thrown 
into  the  river.  The  school-girls  were  burnt  to  death.  I  saw 
their  clothes  and  hair  catch  fire.  In  the  water,'  a  few  paces  off, 
by  the  next  boat,  we  saw  the  youngest  daughter  of  Colonel 
Williams.  A  sepoy  was  going  to  kill  her  with  his  bayonet.  She 
said,  'My  father  was  always  kind  to  sepoys.'  He  turned  away, 
and  just  then  a  villager  struck  her  on  the  head  with  a  club, 
and  she  fell  into  the  water.  These  people  likewise  saw  good 
Mr.  Moncrieff,  the  clergyman,  take  a  book  from  his  pocket 
that  he  never  had  leisure  to  open,  and  heard  him  commence  a 
prayer  for  mercy  which  he  was  not  permitted  to  conclude." 
Another  deponent  observed  an  European  making  for  a  drain 
like  a  scared  water-rat,  when  some  boatmen,  armed  with  cudgels, 
cut  off  his  retreat,  and  beat  him  down  dead  into  the  mud. 

The  women  and  children  who  had  been  reserved 
from  the  massacre  were  imprisoned  during  a  fort 
night  in  a  small  building,  one  story  high — a  cramped 
place,  a  slightly  modified  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta. 
They  were  waiting  in  suspense;  there  was  none 
who  could  forecast  their  fate.  Meantime  the  news 
of  the  massacre  had  traveled  far,  and  an  army  of 
rescuers  with  Havelock  at  its  head  was  on  its  way — 
at  least  an  army  which  hoped  to  be  rescuers.  It 
was  crossing  the  country  by  forced  marches,  and 
strewing  its  way  with  its  own  dead — men  struck 

236 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

down  by  cholera,  and  by  a  heat  which  reached  one 
hundred  and  thirty -five  degrees.  It  was  in  a  vengeful 
fury,  and  it  stopped  for  nothing — neither  heat,  nor 
fatigue,  nor  disease,  nor  human  opposition.  It  tore 
its  impetuous  way  through  hostile  forces,  winning 
victory  after  victory,  but  still  striding  on  and  on, 
not  halting  to  count  results.  And  at  last,  after  this 
extraordinary  march,  it  arrived  before  the  walls  of 
Cawnpore,  met  the  Nana's  massed  strength,  deliv 
ered  a  crushing  defeat,  and  entered. 

But  too  late — only  a  few  hours  too  late.  For  at 
the  last  moment  the  Nana  had  decided  upon  the 
massacre  of  the  captive  women  and  children,  and 
had  commissioned  three  Mohammedans  and  two 
Hindus  to  do  the  work.  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan  says: 

Thereupon  the  five  men  entered.  It  was  the  short  gloaming 
of  Hindustan — the  hour  when  ladies  take  their  evening  drive. 
She  who  had  accosted  the  officer  was  standing  in  the  doorway. 
With  her  were  the  native  doctor  and  two  Hindu  menials.  That 
much  of  the  business  might  be  seen  from  the  veranda,  but  all 
else  was  concealed  amidst  the  interior  gloom.  Shrieks  and 
scuffling  acquainted  those  without  that  the  journeymen  were 
earning  their  hire.  Survur  Khan  soon  emerged  with  his  sword 
broken  off  at  the  hilt.  He  procured  another  from  the  Nana's 
house,  and  a  few  minutes  after  appeared  again  on  the  same 
errand.  The  third  blade  was  of  better  temper;  or  perhaps  the 
thick  of  the  work  was  already  over.  By  the  time  darkness  had 
closed  in,  the  men  came  forth  and  locked  up  the  house  for  the 
night.  Then  the  screams  ceased,  but  the  groans  lasted  till 
morning. 

The  sun  rose  as  usual.  When  he  had  been  up  nearly  three 
hours  the  five  repaired  to  the  scene  of  their  labors  overnight. 
They  were  attended  by  a  few  sweepers,  who  proceeded  to  transfer 
the  contents  of  the  house  to  a  dry  well  situated  behind  some 
trees  which  grew  hard  by.  "The  bodies,"  says  one  who  was 
present  throughout,  "were  dragged  out,  most  of  them  by  the 

237 


MARK    TWAIN 

hair  of  the  head.  Those  who  had  clothing  worth  taking  were 
stripped.  Some  of  the  women  were  alive.  I  cannot  say  how 
many,  but  three  could  speak.  They  prayed  for  the  sake  of  God 
that  an  end  might  be  put  to  their  sufferings.  I  remarked  one 
very  stout  woman,  a  half-caste,  who  was  severely  wounded  in 
both  arms,  who  entreated  to  be  killed.  She  and  two  or  three 
others  were  placed  against  the  bank  of  the  cut  by  which  bullocks 
go  down  in  drawing  water.  The  dead  were  first  thrown  in. 
Yes:  there  was  a  great  crowd  looking  on;  they  were  standing 
along  the  walls  of  the  compound.  They  were  principally  city 
people  and  villagers.  Yes:  there  were  also  sepoys.  Three  boys 
were  alive.  They  were  fair  children.  The  eldest,  I  think,  n.ust 
have  been  six  or  seven,  and  the  youngest  five  years.  They  were 
running  around  the  well  (where  else  could  they  go  to?)  and  there 
was  none  to  save  them.  No:  none  said  a  word  or  tried  to  save 
them." 

At  length  the  smallest  of  them  made  an  infantile  attempt  to 
get  away.  The  little  thing  had  been  frightened  past  bearing 
by  the  murder  of  one  of  the  surviving  ladies.  He  thus  attracted 
the  observation  of  a  native,  who  flung  him  and  his  companions 
down  the  well. 

The  soldiers  had  made  a  march  of  eighteen  days, 
almost  without  rest,  to  save  the  women  and  the 
children,  and  now  they  were  too  late — all  were 
dead  and  the  assassin  had  flown.  What  happened 
then,  Trevelyan  hesitated  to  put  into  words.  "Of 
what  took  place,  the  less  said  is  the  better." 

Then  he  continues : 

But  there  was  a  spectacle  to  witness  which  might  excuse 
much.  Those,  who,  straight  from  the  contested  field,  wandered 
sobbing  through  the  rooms  of  the  ladies'  house,  saw  what  it 
were  well  could  the  outraged  earth  have  straightway  hidden. 
The  inner  apartment  was  ankle-deep  in  blood.  The  plaster  was 
scored  with  sword-cuts;  not  high  up  as  where  men  have  fought, 
but  low  down,  and  about  the  corners,  as  if  a  creature  had 
crouched  to  avoid  the  blow.  Strips  of  dresses,  vainly  tied 
around  the  handles  of  the  doors,  signified  the  contrivance  to 

238 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

which  feminine  despair  had  resorted  as  a  means  of  keeping  out 
the  murderers.  Broken  combs  were  there,  and  the  frills  of 
children's  trousers,  and  torn  cuffs  and  pinafores,  and  little  round 
hats,  and  one  or  two  shoes  with  burst  latchets,  and  one  or  two 
daguerreotype  cases  with  cracked  glasses.  An  officer  picked  up 
a  few  curls,  preserved  in  a  bit  of  cardboard,  and  marked  "Ned's 
hair,  with  love";  but  around  were  strewn  locks,  some  near  a 
yard  in  length,  dissevered,  not  as  a  keepsake,  by  quite  other 
scissors. 


The  battle  of  Waterloo  was  fought  on  the  i8th  of 
June,  1815.  I  do  not  state  this  fact  as  a  reminder 
to  the  reader,  but  as  news  to  him.  For  a  forgotten 
fact  is  news  when  it  comes  again.  Writers  of  books 
have  the  fashion  of  whizzing  by  vast  and  renowned 
historical  events  with  the  remark,  "The  details  of 
this  tremendous  episode  are  too  familiar  to  the  reader 
to  need  repeating  here."  They  know  that  that  is 
not  true.  It  is  a  low  kind  of  flattery.  They  know 
that  the  reader  has  forgotten  every  detail  of  it,  and 
that  nothing  of  the  tremendous  event  is  left  in  his 
mind  but  a  vague  and  formless  luminous  smudge. 
Aside  from  the  desire  to  flatter  the  reader,  they  have 
another  reason  for  making  the  remark — two  reasons, 
indeed.  They  do  not  remember  the  details  them 
selves,  and  do  not  want  the  trouble  of  hunting  them 
up  and  copying  them  out;  also,  they  are  afraid  that 
if  they  search  them  out  and  print  them  they  will  be 
scoffed  at  by  the  book-reviewers  for  retelling  those 
worn  old  things  which  are  familiar  to  everybody. 
They  should  not  mind  the  reviewer's  jeer;  he  doesn't 
remember  any  of  the  worn  old  things  until  the  book 
which  he  is  reviewing  has  retold  them  to  him. 

I  have  made  the  quoted  remark  myself,  at  one 

239 


MARK     TWAIN 

time  and  another,  but  I  was  not  doing  it  to  flatter 
the  reader;  I  was  merely  doing  it  to  save  work.  If 
I  had  known  the  details  without  brushing  up,  I 
would  have  put  them  in ;  but  I  didn't,  and  I  did  not 
want  the  labor  of  posting  myself;  so  I  said,  "The 
details  of  this  tremendous  episode  are  too  familiar 
to  the  reader  to  need  repeating  here."  I  do  not  like 
that  kind  of  a  lie;  still,  it  does  save  work. 

I  am  not  trying  to  get  out  of  repeating  the  details 
of  the  Siege  of  Lucknow  in  fear  of  the  reviewer;  I 
am  not  leaving  them  out  in  fear  that  they  would  not 
interest  the  reader;  I  am  leaving  them  out  partly  to 
save  work;  mainly  for  lack  of  room.  It  is  a  pity, 
too;  for  there  is  not  a  dull  place  anywhere  in  the 
great  story. 

Ten  days  before  the  outbreak  (May  loth)  of  the 
Mutiny,  all  was  serene  at  Lucknow,  the  huge  capital 
of  Oudh,  the  kingdom  which  had  recently  been  seized 
by  the  East  India  Company.  There  was  a  great 
garrison,  composed  of  about  7,000  native  troops 
and  between  700  and  800  whites.  These  white 
soldiers  and  their  families  were  probably  the  only 
people  of  their  race  there;  at  their  elbow  was  that 
swarming  population  of  warlike  natives,  a  race  of 
born  soldiers,  brave,  daring,  and  fond  of  fighting. 
On  high  ground  just  outside  the  city  stood  the 
palace  of  that  great  personage,  the  Resident,  the 
representative  of  British  power  and  authority.  It 
stood  in  the  midst  of  spacious  grounds,  with  its  due 
compliment  of  outbuildings,  and  the  grounds  were 
inclosed  by  a  wall — a  wall  not  for  defense,  but  for 
privacy.  The  mutinous  spirit  was  in  the  air,  but 

240 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

the  whites  were  not  afraid,  and  did  not  feel  much 
troubled. 

Then  came  the  outbreak  at  Meerut,  then  the  cap 
ture  of  Delhi  by  the  mutineers;  in  June  came  the 
three-weeks  leaguer  of  Sir  Hugh  Wheeler  in  his  open 
lot  at  Cawnpore — forty  miles  distant  from  Luck- 
now — then  the  treacherous  massacre  of  that  gallant 
little  garrison;  and  now  the  great  revolt  was  in  full 
flower,  and  the  comfortable  condition  of  things  at 
Lucknow  was  instantly  changed. 

There  was  an  outbreak  there,  and  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence  marched  out  of  the  Residency  on  the  3oth 
of  June  to  put  it  down,  but  was  defeated  with  heavy 
loss,  and  had  difficulty  in  getting  back  again.  That 
night  the  memorable  siege  of  the  Residency — called 
the  siege  of  Lucknow — began.  Sir  Henry  was  killed 
three  days  later,  and  Brigadier  Inglis  succeeded  him 
in  command. 

Outside  of  the  Residency  fence  was  an  immense 
host  of  hostile  and  confident  native  besiegers;  inside 
it  were  480  loyal  native  soldiers,  730  white  ones, 
and  500  women  and  children.  In  those  days  the 
English  garrisons  always  managed  to  hamper  them 
selves  sufficiently  with  women  and  children. 

The  natives  established  themselves  in  houses  close 
at  hand  and  began  to  rain  bullets  and  cannon-balls 
into  the  Residency;  and  this  they  kept  up,  night 
and  day,  during  four  months  and  a  half,  the  little 
garrison  industriously  replying  all  the  time.  The 
women  and  children  soon  became  so  used  to  the 
roar  of  the  guns  that  it  ceased  to  disturb  their  sleep. 
The  children  imitated  siege  and  defense  in  their 

241 


MARK    TWAIN 

play.    The  women — with  any  pretext,  or  with  none — 
would  sally  out  into  the  storm-swept  grounds. 

The  defense  was  kept  up  week  after  week,  with 
stubborn  fortitude,  in  the  midst  of  death,  which 
came  in  many  forms — by  bullet,  smallpox,  cholera, 
and  by  various  diseases  induced  by  unpalatable  and 
insufficient  food,  by  the  long  hours  of  wearying  and 
exhausting  overwork  in  the  daily  and  nightly  battle 
in  the  oppressive  Indian  heat,  and  by  the  broken 
rest  caused  by  the  intolerable  pest  of  mosquitoes, 
flies,  mice,  rats,  and  fleas. 

Six  weeks  after  the  beginning  of  the  siege  more  than 
one-half  of  the  original  force  of  white  soldiers  was  dead, 
and  close  upon  three-fifths  of  the  original  native  force. 

But  the  fighting  went  on  just  the  same.  The 
enemy  mined,  the  English  counter-mined,  and,  turn 
about,  they  blew  up  each  other's  posts.  The  Resi 
dency  grounds  were  honeycombed  with  the  enemy's 
tunnels.  Deadly  courtesies  were  constantly  ex 
changed — sorties  by  the  English  in  the  night ;  rushes 
by  the  enemy  in  the  night — rushes  whose  purpose 
was  to  breach  the  walls  or  scale  them;  rushes  which 
cost  heavily,  and  always  failed. 

The  ladies  got  used  to  all  the  horrors  of  war — 
the  shrieks  of  mutilated  men,  the  sight  of  blood  and 
death.  Lady  Inglis  makes  this  mention  in  her  diary : 

Mrs.  Bruere's  nurse  was  carried  past  our  door  to-day,  wounded 
in  the  eye.  To  extract  the  bullet  it  was  found  necessary  to 
take  out  the  eye — a  fearful  operation.  Her  mistress  held  her 
while  it  was  performed. 

The  first  relieving  force  failed  to  relieve.  It  was 
tinder  Havelock  and  Outram,  and  arrived  when  the 

242 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

siege  had  been  going  on  for  three  months.  It  fought 
its  desperate  way  to  Lucknow,  then  fought  its  way 
through  the  city  against  odds  of  a  hundred  to  one, 
and  entered  the  Residency;  but  there  was  not 
enough  left  of  it,  then,  to  do  any  good.  It  lost 
more  men  in  its  last  fight  than  it  found  in  the 
Residency  when  it  got  in.  It  became  captive  itself. 
The  fighting  and  starving  and  dying  by  bullets 
and  disease  went  steadily  on.  Both  sides  fought 
with  energy  and  industry.  Captain  Birch  puts  this 
striking  incident  in  evidence.  He  is  speaking  of  the 
third  month  of  the  siege: 

As  an  instance  of  the  heavy  firing  brought  to  bear  on  our  posi 
tion  this  month  may  be  mentioned  the  cutting  down  of  the  upper 
story  of  a  brick  building  simply  by  musketry  firing.  This  build 
ing  was  in  a  most  exposed  position.  All  the  shots  which  just 
missed  the  top  of  the  rampart  cut  into  the  dead  wall  pretty 
much  in  a  straight  line,  and  at  length  cut  right  through  and 
brought  the  upper  story  tumbling  down.  The  upper  structure 
on  the  top  of  the  brigade  mess  also  fell  in.  The  Residency 
house  was  a  wreck.  Captain  Anderson's  post  had  long  ago 
been  knocked  down,  and  Innes's  post  also  fell  in.  These  two 
were  riddled  with  round  shot.  As  many  as  two  hundred  were 
picked  up  by  Colonel  Masters. 

The  exhausted  garrison  fought  doggedly  on  all 
through  the  next  month — October.  Then,  Novem 
ber  2d,  news  came — Sir  Colin  Campbell's  relieving 
force  would  soon  be  on  its  way  from  Cawnpore. 

On  the  1 2th  the  boom  of  his  guns  was  heard. 

On  the  1 3th  the  sounds  came  nearer — he  was 
slowly,  but  steadily,  cutting  his  way  through,  storm 
ing  one  stronghold  after  another. 

On  the  1 4th  he  captured  the  Martini&re  College, 

243 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  ran  up  the  British  flag  there.  It  was  seen  from 
the  Residency. 

Next  he  took  the  Dilkoosha. 

On  the  i  yth  he  took  the  former  mess-house  of 
the  Thirty-second  regiment — a  fortified  building,  and 
very  strong.  "A  most  exciting,  anxious  day,"  writes 
Lady  Inglis  in  her  diary.  "About  4  P.M.,  two 
strange  officers  walked  through  our  yard,  leading 
their  horses" — and  by  that  sign  she  knew  that  com 
munication  was  established  between  the  forces,  that 
the  relief  was  real,  this  time,  and  that  the  long  siege 
of  Lucknow  was  ended. 

The  last  eight  or  ten  miles  of  Sir  Colin  Campbell's 
march  was  through  seas  of  blood.  The  weapon 
mainly  used  was  the  bayonet,  the  fighting  was  des 
perate.  The  way  was  mile-stoned  with  detached 
strong  buildings  of  stone,  fortified,  and  heavily 
garrisoned,  and  these  had  to  be  taken  by  assault. 
Neither  side  asked  for  quarter,  and  neither  gave  it. 
At  the  Secundrabagh,  where  nearly  two  thousand  of 
the  enemy  occupied  a  great  stone  house  in  a  garden, 
the  work  of  slaughter  was  continued  until  every  man 
was  killed.  That  is  a  sample  of  the  character  of  that 
devastating  march. 

There  were  but  few  trees  in  the  plain  at  that  time, 
and  from  the  Residency  the  progress  of  the  march, 
step  by  step,  victory  by  victory,  could  be  noted; 
the  ascending  clouds  of  battle-smoke  marked  the 
way  to  the  eye,  and  the  thunder  of  the  guns  marked 
it  to  the  ear. 

Sir  Colin  Campbell  had  not  come  to  Lucknow  to 
hold  it,  but  to  save  the  occupants  of  the  Residency, 

244 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

and  bring  them  away.  Four  or  five  days  after  his 
arrival  the  secret  evacuation  by  the  troops  took 
place,  in  the  middle  of  a  dark  night,  by  the  principal 
gate  (the  Bailie  Guard).  The  two  hundred  women 
and  two  hundred  and  fifty  children  had  been  previ 
ously  removed.  Captain  Birch  says: 

And  now  commenced  a  movement  of  the  most  perfect  arrange 
ment  and  successful  generalship — the  withdrawal  of  the  whole 
of  the  various  forces,  a  combined  movement  requiring  the  great 
est  care  and  skill.  First,  the  garrison  in  immediate  contact 
with  the  enemy  at  the  furthest  extremity  of  the  Residency  posi 
tion  was  marched  out.  Every  other  garrison  in  turn  fell  in 
behind  it,  and  so  passed  out  through  the  Bailie  Guard  gate,  till 
the  whole  of  our  position  was  evacuated.  Then  Havelock's  force 
was  similarly  withdrawn,  post  by  post,  marching  in  rear  of  our 
garrison.  After  them  in  turn  came  the  forces  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief ,  which  joined  on  in  the  rear  of  Havelock's  force.  Regi 
ment  by  regiment  was  withdrawn  with  the  utmost  order  and 
regularity.  The  whole  operation  resembled  the  movement  of 
a  telescope.  Stern  silence  was  kept,  and  the  enemy  took  no 
alarm. 

Lady  Inglis,  referring  to  her  husband  and  to 
General  Sir  James  Outram,  sets  down  the  closing 
detail  of  this  impressive  midnight  retreat,  in  dark 
ness  and  by  stealth,  of  this  shadowy  host  through 
the  gate  which  it  had  defended  so  long  and  so  well: 

At  twelve  precisely  they  marched  out,  John  and  Sir  James 
Outram  remaining  till  all  had  passed,  and  then  they  took  off 
their  hats  to  the  Bailie  Guard,  the  scene  of  as  noble  a  defense 
as  I  think  history  will  ever  have  to  relate. 


245 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

EXAGGERATING  THE  TAJ 

Don't  part  with  your  illusions.    When  they  are  gone  you  may  still  exist  but 
you  have  ceased  to  live. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

Often,  the  surest  way  to  convey  misinformation  is  to  tell  the  strict  truth. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  were  driven  over  Sir  Colin  Campbell's  route 
by  a  British  officer,  and  when  I  arrived  at 
the  Residency  I  was  so  familiar  with  the  road  that 
I  could  have  led  a  retreat  over  it  myself;  but  the 
compass  in  my  head  has  been  out  of  order  from  my 
birth,  and  so,  as  soon  as  I  was  within  the  battered 
Bailie  Guard  and  turned  about  to  review  the  march 
and  imagine  the  relieving  forces  storming  their  way 
along  it,  everything  was  upside  down  and  wrong 
end  first  in  a  moment,  and  I  was  never  able  to  get 
straightened  out  again.  And  now,  when  I  look  at 
the  battle-plan,  the  confusion  remains.  In  me  the 
east  was  born  west,  the  battle-plans  which  have  the 
east  on  the  right-hand  side  are  of  no  use  to  me. 

The  Residency  ruins  are  draped  with  flowering 
vines,  and  are  impressive  and  beautiful.  They  and 
the  grounds  are  sacred  now,  and  will  suffer  no  neg 
lect  nor  be  profaned  by  any  sordid  or  commercial 
use  while  the  British  remain  masters  of  India. 
Within  the  grounds  are  buried  the  dead  who  gave 
up  their  lives  there  in  the  long  siege. 

After  a  fashion,  I  was  able  to  imagine  the  fiery 
storm  that  raged  night  and  day  over  the  place  during 

246 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

so  many  months,  and  after  a  fashion  I  could  imagine 
the  men  moving  through  it,  but  I  could  not  satisfac 
torily  place  the  two  hundred  women,  and  I  could  do 
nothing  at  all  with  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  children. 
I  knew  by  Lady  Inglis's  diary  that  the  children 
carried  on  their  small  affairs  very  much  as  if  blood 
and  carnage  and  the  crash  and  thunder  of  a  siege 
were  natural  and  proper  features  of  nursery  life,  and 
I  tried  to  realize  it ;  but  when  her  little  Johnny  came 
rushing,  all  excitement,  through  the  din  and  smoke, 
shouting,  "Oh,  mama,  the  white  hen  has  laid  an 
egg!"  I  saw  that  I  could  not  do  it.  Johnny's  place 
was  under  the  bed.  I  could  imagine  him  there,  be 
cause  I  could  imagine  myself  there;  and  I  think  I 
should  not  have  been  interested  in  a  hen  that  was 
laying  an  egg;  my  interest  would  have  been  with 
the  parties  that  were  laying  the  bombshells.  I  sat 
at  dinner  with  one  of  those  children  in  the  Club's 
Indian  palace,  and  I  knew  that  all  through  the  siege 
he  was  perfecting  his  teething  and  learning  to  talk; 
and  while  to  me  he  was  the  most  impressive  object  in 
Lucknow  after  the  Residency  ruins,  I  was  not  able 
to  imagine  what  his  life  had  been  during  that  tem 
pestuous  infancy  of  his,  nor  what  sort  of  a  curious 
surprise  it  must  have  been  to  him  to  be  marched 
suddenly  out  into  a  strange  dumb  world  where  there 
wasn't  any  noise,  and  nothing  going  on.  He  was 
only  forty-one  when  I  saw  him,  a  strangely  youthful 
link  to  connect  the  present  with  so  ancient  an  episode 
as  the  Great  Mutiny. 

By  and  by  we  saw  Cawnpore,  and  the  open  lot 
which  was  the  scene  of  Moore's  memorable  defense, 

247 


MARK     TWAIN 

and  the  spot  on  the  shore  of  the  Ganges  where  the 
massacre  of  the  betrayed  garrison  occurred,  and  the 
small  Indian  temple  whence  the  bugle-signal  notified 
the  assassins  to  fall  on.  This  latter  was  a  lonely 
spot,  and  silent.  The  sluggish  river  drifted  by, 
almost  currentless.  It  was  dead  low  water,  narrow 
channels  with  vast  sandbars  between,  all  the  way 
across  the  wide  bed;  and  the  only  living  thing  in 
sight  was  that  grotesque  and  solemn  bald-headed 
bird,  the  Adjutant,  standing  on  his  six-foot  stilts, 
solitary  on  a  distant  bar,  with  his  head  sunk  between 
his  shoulders,  thinking;  thinking  of  his  prize,  I  sup 
pose — the  dead  Hindu  that  lay  awash  at  his  feet, 
and  whether  to  eat  him  alone  or  invite  friends.  He 
and  his  prey  were  a  proper  accent  to  that  mournful 
place.  They  were  in  keeping  with  it,  they  empha 
sized  its  loneliness  and  its  solemnity. 

And  we  saw  the  scene  of  the  slaughter  of  the 
helpless  women  and  children,  and  also  the  costly 
memorial  that  is  built  over  the  well  which  contains 
their  remains.  The  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  is  gone, 
but  a  more  reverent  age  is  come,  and  whatever  re 
membrancer  still  exists  of  the  moving  and  heroic 
sufferings  and  achievements  of  the  garrisons  of  Luck- 
now  and  Cawnpore  will  be  guarded  and  preserved. 

In  Agra  and  its  neighborhood,  and  afterward  at 
Delhi,  we  saw  forts,  mosques,  and  tombs,  which 
were  built  in  the  great  days  of  the  Mohammedan 
emperors,  and  which  are  marvels  of  cost,  magnitude, 
and  richness  of  materials  and  ornamentation,  crea 
tions  of  surpassing  grandeur,  wonders  which  do  in 
deed  make  the  like  things  in  the  rest  of  the  world 

248 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

seem  tame  and  inconsequential  by  comparison.  I 
am  not  purposing  to  describe  them.  By  good 
fortune  I  had  not  read  much  about  them,  and  there 
fore  was  able  to  get  a  natural  and  rational  focus 
upon  them,  with  the  result  that  they  thrilled,  blessed, 
and  exalted  me.  But  if  I  had  previously  overheated 
my  imagination  by  drinking  too  much  pestilential 
literary  hot  Scotch,  I  should  have  suffered  disap 
pointment  and  sorrow. 

I  mean  to  speak  of  only  one  of  these  many  world- 
renowned  buildings,  the  Taj  Mahal,  the  most  cele 
brated  construction  in  the  earth.  I  had  read  a  great 
deal  too  much  about  it.  I  saw  it  in  the  daytime,  I 
saw  it  in  the  moonlight,  I  saw  it  near  at  hand,  I  saw 
it  from  a  distance;  and  I  knew  all  the  time,  that  of 
its  kind  it  was  the  wonder  of  the  world,  with  no 
competitor  now  and  no  possible  future  competitor; 
and  yet,  it  was  not  my  Taj.  My  Taj  had  been  built 
by  excitable  literary  people;  it  was  solidly  lodged  in 
my  head,  and  I  could  not  blast  it  out. 

I  wish  to  place  before  the  reader  some  of  the 
usual  descriptions  of  the  Taj,  and  ask  him  to  take 
note  of  the  impressions  left  in  his  mind.  These 
descriptions  do  really  state  the  truth — as  nearly  as 
the  limitations  of  language  will  allow.  But  language 
is  a  treacherous  thing,  a  most  unsure  vehicle,  and  it 
can  seldom  arrange  descriptive  words  in  such  a  way 
that  they  will  not  inflate  the  facts — by  help  of  the 
reader's  imagination,  which  is  always  ready  to  take 
a  hand,  and  work  for  nothing,  and  do  the  bulk  of  it 
at  that. 

I  will  begin  with  a  few  sentences  from  the  excellent 
249 


MARK     TWAIN 

little  local  guide-book  of  Mr.  Satya  Chandra  Mukerji. 
I  take  them  from  here  and  there  in  his  description: 

The  inlaid  work  of  the  Taj  and  the  flowers  and  petals  that 
are  to  be  found  on  all  sides  on  the  surface  of  the  marble  evince 
a  most  delicate  touch. 

That  is  true. 

The  inlaid  work,  the  marble,  the  flowers,  the  buds,  the  leaves, 
the  petals,  and  the  lotus  stems  are  almost  without  a  rival  in 
the  whole  of  the  civilized  world. 

The  work  of  inlaying  with  stones  and  gems  is  found  in  the  high 
est  perfection  in  the  Taj. 

Gems,  inlaid  flowers,  buds,  and  leaves  to  be  found 
on  all  sides.  What  do  you  see  before  you?  Is  the 
fairy  structure  growing?  Is  it  becoming  a  jewel 
casket  ? 

The  whole  of  the  Taj  produces  a  wonderful  effect  that  is  equally 
sublime  and  beautiful. 

Then  Sir  William  Wilson  Hunter: 

The  Taj  Mahal  with  its  beautiful  domes,  "a  dream  of  marble," 
rises  on  the  river-bank. 

The  materials  are  white  marble  and  red  sandstone. 

The  complexity  of  its  design  and  the  delicate  intricacy  of  the 
workmanship  baffle  description. 

Sir  William  continues.  I  will  italicize  some  of 
his  words : 

The  mausoleum  stands  on  a  raised  marble  platform,  at  each  of 
whose  corners  rises  a  tall  and  slender  minaret  of  graceful  pro 
portions  and  of  exquisite  beauty.  Beyond  the  platform  stretch 
the  two  wings,  one  of  which  is  itself  a  mosque  of  great  archi 
tectural  merit.  In  the  center  of  the  whole  design  the  mausoleum 

250 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

occupies  a  square  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  feet,  with  the 
angles  deeply  truncated  so  as  to  form  an  unequal  octagon.  The 
main  feature  in  this  central  pile  is  the  great  dome,  which  swells 
upward  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  a  sphere  and  tapers  at  its  ex 
tremity  into  a  pointed  spire  crowned  by  a  crescent.  Beneath 
it  an  inclosure  of  marble  trellis-work  surrounds  the  tomb  of 
the  princess  and  of  her  husband,  the  Emperor.  Each  corner 
of  the  mausoleum  is  covered  by  a  similar  though  much  smaller 
dome  erected  on  a  pediment  pierced  with  graceful  Saracenic 
arches.  Light  is  admitted  into  the  interior  through  a  double 
screen  of  pierced  marble,  which  tempers  the  glare  of  an  Indian 
sky,  while  its  whiteness  prevents  the  mellow  effect  from  degen 
erating  into  gloom.  The  internal  decorations  consist  of  inlaid 
work  in  precious  stones,  such  as  agate,  jasper,  etc.,  with  which 
every  spandrel  or  salient  point  in  the  architecture  is  richly  fretted. 
Brown  and  violet  marble  is  also  freely  employed  in  wreaths, 
scrolls,  and  lintels  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  white  wall.  In 
regard  to  color  and  design,  the  interior  of  the  Taj  may  rank  first 
in  the  world  for  purely  decorative  workmanship;  while  the  perfect 
symmetry  of  its  exterior,  once  seen,  can  never  be  forgotten,  nor 
the  aerial  grace  of  its  domes,  rising  like  marble  bubbles  into  the 
clear  sky.  The  Taj  represents  the  most  highly  elaborated  stage 
of  ornamentation  reached  by  the  Indo-Mohammedan  builders, 
the  stage  in  which  the  architect  ends  and  the  jeweler  begins.  In 
its  magnificent  gateway  the  diagonal  ornamentation  at  the  cor 
ners,  which  satisfied  the  designers  of  the  gateways  of  Itimad-ud- 
doulah  and  Sikandra  mausoleums,  is  superseded  by  fine  marble 
cables,  in  bold  twists,  strong  and  handsome.  The  triangular 
insertions  of  white  marble  and  large  flowers  have  in  like  manner 
given  place  to  fine  inlaid  work.  Firm  perpendicular  lines  in 
black  marble  with  well-proportioned  panels  of  the  same  material 
are  effectively  used  in  the  interior  of  the  gateway.  On  its  top 
the  Hindu  brackets  and  monolithic  architraves  of  Sikandra  are 
replaced  by  Moorish  carped  arches,  usually  single  blocks  of  red 
sandstone,  in  the  kiosks  and  pavilions  which  adorn  the  roof. 
From  the  pillared  pavilions  a  magnificent  view  is  obtained  of  the 
Taj  gardens  below,  with  the  noble  Jumna  River  at  their  further 
end,  and  the  city  and  fort  of  Agra  in  the  distance.  From  this 
beautiful  and  splendid  gateway  one  passes  up  a  straight  alley 
shaded  by  evergreen  trees  cooled  by  a  broad  shallow  piece  of 
water  running  along  the  middle  of  the  path  to  the  Taj  itself. 

251 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  Taj  is  entirely  of  marble  and  gems.  The  red  sandstone  of  the 
other  Mohammedan  buildings  has  entirely  disappeared,  or  rather 
the  red  sandstone  which  used  to  form  the  thickness  of  the  walls 
is  in  the  Taj  itself  overlaid  completely  with  white  marble,  and 
the  white  marble  is  itself  inlaid  with  precious  stones  arranged  in 
lovely  patterns  of  flowers.  A  feeling  of  purity  impresses  itself 
on  the  eye  and  the  mind  from  the  absence  of  the  coarser  material 
which  forms  so  invariable  a  material  in  Agra  architecture.  The 
lower  wall  and  panels  are  covered  with  tulips,  oleanders,  and 
full-blown  lilies,  in  flat  carving  on  the  white  marble;  and 
although  the  inlaid  work  of  flowers  done  in  gems  is  very  brilliant 
when  looked  at  closely,  there  is  on  the  whole  but  little  color, 
and  the  all-prevailing  sentiment  is  one  of  whiteness,  silence, 
and  calm.  The  whiteness  is  broken  only  by  the  fine  color  of 
the  inlaid  gems,  by  lines  in  black  marble,  and  by  delicately 
written  inscriptions,  also  in  black,  from  the  Koran.  Under 
the  dome  of  the  vast  mausoleum  a  high  and  beautiful  screen  of 
open  tracery  in  white  marble  rises  around  the  two  tombs,  or 
rather  cenotaphs  of  the  emperor  and  his  princess;  and  in  this 
marvel  of  marble  the  carving  has  advanced  from  the  old  geometri 
cal  patterns  to  a  trellis-work  of  flowers  and  foliage,  handled 
with  great  freedom  and  spirit.  The  two  cenotaphs  in  the  center 
of  the  exquisite  inclosure  have  no  carving  except  the  plain 
Kalamdan  or  oblong  pen-box  on  the  tomb  of  Emperor  Shah 
Jehan.  But  both  cenotaphs  are  inlaid  with  flowers  made  of 
costly  gems,  and  with  the  ever-graceful  oleander  scroll. 

Bayard  Taylor,  after  describing  the  details  of  the 
Taj,  goes  on  to  say: 

On  both  sides  the  palm,  the  banyan,  and  the  feathery  bamboo 
mingle  their  foliage;  the  song  of  birds  meets  your  ears,  and  the 
odor  of  roses  and  lemon  flowers  sweetens  the  air.  Down  such 
a  vista  and  over  such  a  foreground  rises  the  Taj.  There  is  no 
mystery,  no  sense  of  partial  failure  about  the  Taj.  A  thing  of 
perfect  beauty  and  of  absolute  finish  in  every  detail,  it  might  pass 
for  the  work  of  genii  who  knew  naught  of  the  weaknesses  and 
ills  with  which  mankind  are  beset. 

All  of  these  details  are  true.  But,  taken  together, 
they  state  a  falsehood — to  you.  You  cannot  add 

252 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

them  up  correctly.  Those  writers  know  the  values 
of  their  words  and  phrases,  but  to  you  the  words 
and  phrases  convey  other  and  uncertain  values.  To 
those  writers  their  phrases  have  values  which  I  think 
I  am  now  acquainted  with;  and  for  the  help  of  the 
reader  I  will  here  repeat  certain  of  those  words  and 
phrases,  and  follow  them  with  numerals  which  shall 
represent  those  values — then  we  shall  see  the  differ 
ence  between  a  writer's  ciphering  and  a  mistaken 
reader's : 

Precious  stones,  such  as  agate,  jasper,  etc. — 5. 

With  which  every  salient  point  is  richly  fretted — 5. 

First  in  the  world  for  purely  decorative  workman 
ship — Q. 

The  Taj  represents  the  stage  where  the  architect  ends 
and  the  jeweler  begins — 5. 

The  Taj  is  entirely  of  marble  and  gems — 7. 

Inlaid  with  precious  stones  in  lovely  patterns  of 
flowers — 5. 

The  inlaid  work  of  flowers  done  in  gems  is  very 
brilliant — (followed  by  a  most  important  modifica 
tion  which  the  reader  is  sure  to  read  too  care 
lessly) — 2. 

The  vast  mausoleum — 5. 

This  marvel  of  marble — 5. 

The  exquisite  inclosure — 5. 

Inlaid  with  flowers  made  of  costly  gems — 5. 

A  thing  of  perfect  beauty  and  absolute  finish — 5. 

Those  details  are  correct;  the  figures  which  I 
have  placed  after  them  represent  quite  fairly  their 
individual  values.  Then  why,  as  a  whole,  do  they 
convey  a  false  impression  to  the  reader?  It  is  be- 

253 


MARK    TWAIN 

cause  the  reader — beguiled  by  his  heated  imagina 
tion — masses  them  in  the  wrong  way.  The  writer 
would  mass  the  first  three  figures  in  the  following 
way,  and  they  would  speak  the  truth: 

5 

5 

9 

Total— 19 

But  the  reader  masses  them  thus — and  then  they 
tell  a  lie — 559. 

The  writer  would  add  all  of  his  twelve  numerals 
together,  and  then  the  sum  would  express  the  whole 
truth  about  the  Taj,  and  the  truth  only — 63. 

But  the  reader — always  helped  by  his  imagination 
— would  put  the  figures  in  a  row  one  after  the 
other,  and  get  this  sum,  which  would  tell  him  a 
noble  big  lie : 

559575255555- 

You  must  put  in  the  commas  yourself;  I  have  to 
go  on  with  my  work. 

The  reader  will  always  be  sure  to  put  the  figures 
together  in  that  wrong  way,  and  then  as  surely  before 
him  will  stand,  sparkling  in  the  sun,  a  gem-crusted 
Taj  tall  as  the  Matterhorn. 

I  had  to  visit  Niagara  fifteen  times  before  I  suc 
ceeded  in  getting  my  imaginary  Falls  gaged  to  the 
actuality  and  could  begin  to  sanely  and  wholesomely 
wonder  at  them  for  what  they  were,  not  what  I  had 
expected  them  to  be.  When  I  first  approached 
them  it  was  with  my  face  lifted  toward  the  sky,  for 
I  thought  I  was  going  to  see  an  Atlantic  Ocean  pour- 

254 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

ing  down  thence,  over  cloud-vexed  Himalayan 
heights,  a  sea-green  wall  of  water  sixty  miles  front  and 
six  miles  high,  and  so,  when  the  toy  reality  came 
suddenly  into  view — that  beruffled  little  wet  apron 
hanging  out  to  dry — the  shock  was  too  much  for 
me,  and  I  fell  with  a  dull  thud. 

Yet  slowly,  surely,  steadily,  in  the  course  of  my 
fifteen  visits,  the  proportions  adjusted  themselves  to 
the  facts,  and  I  came  at  last  to  realize  that  a  water 
fall  a  hundred  and  sixty-five  feet  high  and  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  wide  was  an  impressive  thing.  It  was  not 
a  dipperful  to  my  vanished  great  vision,  but  it  would 
answer. 

I  know  that  I  ought  to  do  with  the  Taj  as  I  was 
obliged  to  do  with  Niagara — see  it  fifteen  times, 
and  let  my  mind  gradually  get  rid  of  the  Taj  built  in 
it  by  its  describers,  by  help  of  my  imagination,  and 
substitute  for  it  the  Taj  of  fact.  It  would  be  noble 
and  fine,  then,  and  a  marvel;  not  the  marvel  which 
it  replaced,  but  still  a  marvel,  and  fine  enough.  I 
am  a  careless  reader,  I  suppose — an  impressionist 
reader;  an  impressionist  reader  of  what  is  not  an 
impressionist  picture;  a  reader  who  overlooks  the 
informing  details  or  masses  their  sum  improperly, 
and  gets  only  a  large,  splashy,  general  effect — an 
effect  which  is  not  correct,  and  which  is  not  war 
ranted  by  the  particulars  placed  before  me — par 
ticulars  which  I  did  not  examine,  and  whose  mean 
ings  I  did  not  cautiously  and  carefully  estimate.  It 
is  an  effect  which  is  some  thirty-five  or  forty  times 
finer  than  the  reality,  and  is  therefore  a  great  deal 
better  and  more  valuable  than  the  reality;  and  so,  I 

255 


MARK     TWAIN 

ought  never  to  hunt  up  the  reality,  but  stay  miles 
away  from  it,  and  thus  preserve  undamaged  my  own 
private  mighty  Niagara  tumbling  out  of  the  vault  of 
heaven,  and  my  own  ineffable  Taj,  built  of  tinted 
mists  upon  jeweled  arches  of  rainbows  supported  by 
colonnades  of  moonlight.  It  is  a  mistake  for  a 
person  with  an  unregulated  imagination  to  go  and 
look  at  an  illustrious  world's  wonder. 

I  suppose  that  many,  many  years  ago  I  gathered 
the  idea  that  the  Taj's  place  in  the  achievements  of 
man  was  exactly  the  place  of  the  ice-storm  in  the 
achievements  of  Nature;  that  the  Taj  represented 
man's  supremest  possibility  in  the  creation  of  grace 
and  beauty  and  exquisiteness  and  splendor,  just  as 
the  ice-storm  represents  Nature's  supremest  possi 
bility  in  the  combination  of  those  same  qualities.  I 
do  not  know  how  long  ago  that  idea  was  bred  in  me, 
but  I  know  that  I  cannot  remember  back  to  a  time 
when  the  thought  of  either  of  these  symbols  of 
gracious  and  unapproachable  perfection  did  not  at 
once  suggest  the  other.  If  I  thought  of  the  ice- 
storm,  the  Taj  rose  before  me  divinely  beautiful;  if 
I  thought  of  the  Taj,  with  its  encrustings  and  inlay- 
ings  of  jewels,  the  vision  of  the  ice-storm  rose.  And 
so,  to  me,  all  these  years,  the  Taj  has  had  no  rival 
among  the  temples  and  palaces  of  men,  none  that 
even  remotely  approached  it — it  was  man's  archi 
tectural  ice-storm. 

Here  in  London  the  other  night  I  was  talking  with 
some  Scotch  and  English  friends,  and  I  mentioned 
the  ice-storm,  using  it  as  a  figure — a  figure  which 
failed,  for  none  of  them  had  heard  of  the  ice-storm. 

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FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

One  gentleman,  who  was  very  familiar  with  American 
literature,  said  he  had  never  seen  it  mentioned  in  any 
book.  That  is  strange.  And  I,  myself,  was  not 
able  to  say  that  I  had  seen  it  mentioned  in  a  book; 
and  yet  the  autumn  foliage,  with  all  other  American 
scenery,  has  received  full  and  competent  attention. 

The  oversight  is  strange,  for  in  America  the  ice- 
storm  is  an  event.  And  it  is  not  an  event  which  one 
is  careless  about.  When  it  comes,  the  news  flies 
from  room  to  room  in  the  house,  there  are  bangings 
on  the  doors,  and  shoutings,  "The  ice-storm!  the 
ice-storm!"  and  even  the  laziest  sleepers  throw  off 
the  covers  and  join  the  rush  for  the  windows.  The 
ice -storm  occurs  in  midwinter,  and  usually  its 
enchantments  are  wrought  in  the  silence  and  the 
darkness  of  the  night.  A  fine  drizzling  rain  falls 
hour  after  hour  upon  the  naked  twigs  and  branches 
of  the  trees,  and  as  it  falls  it  freezes.  In  time  the 
trunk  and  every  branch  and  twig  are  incased  in 
hard  pure  ice;  so  that  the  tree  looks  like  a  skeleton 
tree  made  all  of  glass — glass  that  is  crystal-clear. 
All  along  the  under  side  of  every  branch  and  twig 
is  a  comb  of  little  icicles — the  frozen  drip.  Sometimes 
these  pendants  do  not  quite  amount  to  icicles,  but 
are  round  beads — frozen  tears. 

The  weather  clears,  toward  dawn,  and  leaves  a 
brisk,  pure  atmosphere  and  a  sky  without  a  shred  of 
cloud  in  it — and  everything  is  still,  there  is  not  a 
breath  of  wind.  The  dawn  breaks  and  spreads,  the 
news  of  the  storm  goes  about  the  house,  and  the 
little  and  the  big,  in  wraps  and  blankets,  flock  to  the 
window  and  press  together  there,  and  gaze  intently 

257 


MARK    TWAIN 

out  upon  the  great  white  ghost  in  the  grounds,  and 
nobody  says  a  word,  nobody  stirs.  All  are  waiting; 
they  know  what  is  coming,  and  they  are  waiting — 
waiting  for  the  miracle.  The  minutes  drift  on  and 
on  and  on,  with  not  a  sound  but  the  ticking  of  the 
clock;  at  last  the  sun  fires  a  sudden  sheaf  of  rays 
into  the  ghostly  tree  and  turns  it  into  a  white  splen 
dor  of  glittering  diamonds.  Everybody  catches  his 
breath,  and  feels  a  swelling  in  his  throat  and  a 
moisture  in  his  eyes — but  waits  again ;  for  he  knows 
what  is  coming;  there  is  more  yet.  The  sun  climbs 
higher,  and  still  higher,  flooding  the  tree  from  its 
loftiest  spread  of  branches  to  its  lowest,  turning  it 
to  a  glory  of  white  fire;  then  in  a  moment,  without 
warning,  comes  the  great  miracle,  the  supreme 
miracle,  the  miracle  without  its  fellow  in  the  earth ;  a 
gust  of  wind  sets  every  branch  and  twig  to  swaying, 
and  in  an  instant  turns  the  whole  white  tree  into  a 
spouting  and  spraying  explosion  of  flashing  gems  of 
every  conceivable  color;  and  there  it  stands  and 
sways  this  way  and  that,  flash!  flash!  flash!  a 
dancing  and  glancing  world  of  rubies,  emeralds, 
diamonds,  sapphires,  the  most  radiant  spectacle,  the 
most  blinding  spectacle,  the  divinest,  the  most  ex 
quisite,  the  most  intoxicating  vision  of  fire  and  color 
and  intolerable  and  unimaginable  splendor  that  ever 
any  eye  has  rested  upon  in  this  world,  or  will  ever 
rest  upon  outside  of  the  gates  of  heaven. 

By  all  my  senses,  all  my  faculties,  I  know  that  the 
ice-storm  is  Nature's  supremest  achievement  in  the 
domain  of  the  Isuperb  and  the  beautiful ;  and  by  my 
reason,  at  least,  I  know  that  the  Taj  is  man's  ice-storm. 

258 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

In  the  ice-storm  every  one  of  the  myriad  ice-beads 
pendent  from  twig  and  branch  is  an  individual  gem, 
and  changes  color  with  every  motion  caused  by  the 
wind;  each  tree  carries  a  million,  and  a  forest-front 
exhibits  the  splendors  of  the  single  tree  multiplied 
by  a  thousand. 

It  occurs  to  me  now  that  I  have  never  seen  the 
ice-storm  put  upon  canvas,  and  have  not  heard  that 
any  painter  has  tried  to  do  it.  I  wonder  why  that 
is.  Is  it  that  paint  cannot  counterfeit  the  intense 
blaze  of  a  sun-flooded  jewel?  There  should  be,  and 
must  be,  a  reason,  and  a  good  one,  why  the  most 
enchanting  sight  that  Nature  has  created  has  been 
neglected  by  the  brush. 

Often,  the  surest  way  to  convey  misinformation  is 
to  tell  the  strict  truth.  The  describers  of  the  Taj 
have  used  the  word  gem  in  its  strictest  sense — its 
scientific  sense.  In  that  sense  it  is  a  mild  word,  and 
promises  but  little  to  the  eye — nothing  bright, 
nothing  brilliant,  nothing  sparkling,  nothing  splen 
did  in  the  way  of  color.  It  accurately  describes  the 
sober  and  unobtrusive  gem- work  of  the  Taj ;  that  is, 
to  the  very  highly  educated  one  person  in  a  thou 
sand;  but  it  most  falsely  describes  it  to  the  999. 
But  the  999  are  the  people  who  ought  to  be  espe 
cially  taken  care  of,  and  to  them  it  does  not  mean 
quiet-colored  designs  wrought  in  carnelians,  or  agates, 
or  such  things;  they  know  the  word  in  its  wide 
and  ordinary  sense  only,  and  so  to  them  it  means 
diamonds  and  rubies  and  opals  and  their  kindred, 
and  the  moment  their  eyes  fall  upon  it  in  print 
they  see  a  vision  of  glorious  colors  clothed  in  fire. 

259 


MARK     TWAIN 

These  describers  are  writing  for  the  "general," 
and  so,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  being  understood, 
they  ought  to  use  words  in  their  ordinary  sense,  or 
else  explain.  The  word  fountain  means  one  thing 
in  Syria,  where  there  is  but  a  handful  of  people;  it 
means  quite  another  thing  in  North  America,  where 
there  are  seventy-five  million.  If  I  were,  describing 
some  Syrian  scenery,  and  should  exclaim,  "Within  the 
narrow  space  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  square  I  saw,  in 
the  glory  of  the  flooding  moonlight,  two  hundred 
noble  fountains — imagine  the  spectacle!"  the  North 
American  would  have  a  vision  of  clustering  columns 
of  water  soaring  aloft,  bending  over  in  graceful 
arches,  bursting  in  beaded  spray  and  raining  white 
fire  in  the  moonlight — and  he  would  be  deceived. 
But  the  Syrian  would  not  be  deceived;  he  would 
merely  see  two  hundred  fresh-water  springs — two 
hundred  drowsing  puddles,  as  level  and  unpreten 
tious  and  unexcited  as  so  many  door-mats,  and  even 
with  the  help  of  the  moonlight  he  would  not  lose  his 
grip  in  the  presence  of  the  exhibition.  My  word 
"fountain"  would  be  correct;  it  would  speak  the 
strict  truth;  and  it  would  convey  the  strict  truth  to 
the  handful  of  Syrians,  and  the  strictest  misinforma 
tion  to  the  North  American  millions.  With  their 
gems — and  gems — and  more  gems — and  gems  again 
— and  still  other  gems — the  describers  of  the  Taj 
are  within  their  legal  but  not  their  moral  rights; 
they  are  dealing  in  the  strictest  scientific  truth;  and 
in  doing  it  they  succeed  to  admiration  in  telling 
"what  ain't  so." 

260 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

SATAN  DRUNK;  LOSES  HIS  JOB 

SATAN  (impatiently)  to  NEW-COMER.  The  trouble  with  you  Chicago  people 
is,  that  you  think  you  are  the  best  people  down  here;  whereas  you  are  merely  the 
most  numerous. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  wandered  contentedly  around  here  and  there 
in  India;  to  Lahore,  among  other  places, 
where  the  Lieutenant-Governor  lent  me  an  elephant. 
This  hospitality  stands  out  in  my  experiences  in  a 
stately  isolation.  It  was  a  fine  elephant,  affable, 
gentlemanly,  educated,  and  I  was  not  afraid  of  it. 
I  even  rode  it  with  confidence  through  the  crowded 
lanes  of  the  native  city,  where  it  scared  all  the 
horses  out  of  their  senses,  and  where  children  were 
always  just  escaping  its  feet.  It  took  the  middle  of 
the  road  in  a  fine,  independent  way,  and  left  it  to 
the  world  to  get  out  of  the  way  or  take  the  conse 
quences.  I  am  used  to  being  afraid  of  collisions 
when  I  ride  or  drive,  but  when  one  is  on  top  of  an 
elephant  that  feeling  is  absent.  I  could  have  ridden 
in  comfort  through  a  regiment  of  runaway  teams.  I 
could  easily  learn  to  prefer  an  elephant  to  any  other 
vehicle,  partly  because  of  that  immunity  from  col 
lisions,  and  partly  because  of  the  fine  view  one 
has  from  up  there,  and  partly  because  of  the  dignity 
one  feels  in  that  high  place,  and  partly  because  one 
can  look  in  at  the  windows  and  see  what  is  going  on 
privately  among  the  family.  The  Lahore  horses 

261 


MARK     TWAIN 

were  used  to  elephants,  but  they  were  rapturously 
afraid  of  them  just  the  same.  It  seemed  curious. 
Perhaps  the  better  they  know  the  elephant  the  more 
they  respect  him  in  that  peculiar  way.  In  our  own 
case  we  are  not  afraid  of  dynamite  till  we  get  ac 
quainted  with  it. 

We  drifted  as  far  as  Rawal  Pindi,  away  up  on  the 
Afghan  frontier — I  think  it  was  the  Afghan  frontier, 
but  it  may  have  been  Herzegovina — it  was  around 
there  somewhere — and  down  again  to  Delhi,  to  see 
the  ancient  architectural  wonders  there  and  in  Old 
Delhi  and  not  describe  them,  and  also  to  see  the 
scene  of  the  illustrious  assault,  in  the  Mutiny  days, 
when  the  British  carried  Delhi  by  storm,  one  of  the 
marvels  of  history  for  impudent  daring  and  immortal 
valor. 

We  had  a  refreshing  rest,  there  in  Delhi,  in  a 
great  old  mansion  which  possessed  historical  interest. 
It  was  built  by  a  rich  Englishman  who  had  become 
orientalized — so  much  so  that  he  had  a  zenana. 
But  he  was  a  broad-minded  man,  and  remained  so. 
To  please  his  harem  he  built  a  mosque;  to  please 
himself  he  built  an  English  church.  That  kind  of  a 
man  will  arrive,  somewhere.  In  the  Mutiny  days 
the  mansion  was  the  British  general's  headquarters. 
It  stands  in  a  great  garden — oriental  fashion — and 
about  it  are  many  noble  trees.  The  trees  harbor 
monkeys;  and  they  are  monkeys  of  a  watchful  and 
enterprising  sort,  and  not  much  troubled  with  fear. 
They  invade  the  house  whenever  they  get  a  chance, 
and  carry  off  everything  they  don't  want.  One 
morning  the  master  of  the  house  was  in  his  bath, 

262 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

and  the  window  was  open.  Near  it  stood  a  pot  of 
yellow  paint  and  a  brush.  Some  monkeys  appeared 
in  the  window;  to  scare  them  away,  the  gentleman 
threw  his  sponge  at  them.  They  did  not  scare  at 
all;  they  jumped  into  the  room  and  threw  yellow 
paint  all  over  him  from  the  brush,  and  drove  him 
out;  then  they  painted  the  walls  and  the  floor  and 
the  tank  and  the  windows  and  the  furniture  yellow, 
and  were  in  the  dressing-room  painting  that  when 
help  arrived  and  routed  them. 

Two  of  these  creatures  came  into  my  room  in  the 
early  morning,  through  a  window  whose  shutters  I 
had  left  open,  and  when  I  woke  one  of  them  was 
before  the  glass  brushing  his  hair,  and  the  other  one 
had  my  note-book,  and  was  reading  a  page  of 
humorous  notes  and  crying.  I  did  not  mind  the  one 
with  the  hair-brush,  but  the  conduct  of  the  other 
one  hurt  me;  it  hurts  me  yet.  I  threw  something 
at  him,  and  that  was  wrong,  for  my  host  had  told 
me  that  the  monkeys  were  best  left  alone.  They 
threw  everything  at  me  that  they  could  lift,  and  then 
went  into  the  bathroom  to  get  some  more  things, 
and  I  shut  the  door  on  them. 

At  Jeypore,  in  Rajputana,  we  made  a  consider 
able  stay.  We  were  not  in  the  native  city,  but 
several  miles  from  it,  in  the  small  European  official 
suburb.  There  were  but  few  Europeans — only  four 
teen — but  they  were  all  kind  and  hospitable,  and 
it  amounted  to  being  at  home.  In  Jeypore  we 
found  again  what  we  had  found  all  about  India — 
that  while  the  Indian  servant  is  in  his  way  a  very 
real  treasure,  he  will  sometimes  bear  watching,  and 

263 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  Englishman  watches  him.  If  he  sends  him  on 
an  errand,  he  wants  more  than  the  man's  word  for 
it  that  he  did  the  errand.  When  fruit  and  vegetables 
were  sent  to  us,  a  "chit"  came  with  them — a  receipt 
for  us  to  sign;  otherwise  the  things  might  not 
arrive.  If  a  gentleman  sent  up  his  carriage,  the 
chit  stated  "from"  such-and-such  an  hour  "to" 
such-and-such  an  hour — which  made  it  unhandy  for 
the  coachman  and  his  two  or  three  subordinates  to 
put  us  off  with  a  part  of  the  allotted  time  and  devote 
the  rest  of  it  to  a  lark  of  their  own. 

We  were  pleasantly  situated  in  a  small  two-storied 
inn,  in  an  large  empty  compound  which  was  sur 
rounded  by  a  mud  wall  as  high  as  a  man's  head. 
The  inn  was  kept  by  nine  Hindu  brothers,  its 
owners.  They  lived,  with  their  families,  in  a  one- 
storied  building  within  the  compound,  but  off  to  one 
side,  and  there  was  always  a  long  pile  of  their  little 
comely  brown  children  loosely  stacked  in  its  veranda, 
and  a  detachment  of  the  parents  wedged  among 
them,  smoking  the  hookah  or  the  howdah,  or  what 
ever  they  call  it.  By  the  veranda  stood  a  palm, 
and  a  monkey  lived  in  it,  and  led  a  lonesome  life, 
and  always  looked  sad  and  weary,  and  the  crows 
bothered  him  a  good  deal. 

The  inn  cow  poked  about  the  compound  and 
emphasized  the  secluded  and  country  air  of  the 
place,  and  there  was  a  dog  of  no  particular  breed, 
who  was  always  present  in  the  compound,  and 
always  asleep,  always  stretched  out  baking  in  the 
sun  and  adding  to  the  deep  tranquillity  and  repose- 
fulness  of  the  place,  when  the  crows  were  away  on 

264 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

business.  White-draperied  servants  were  coming 
and  going  all  the  time,  but  they  seemed  only  spirits, 
for  their  feet  were  bare  and  made  no  sound.  Down 
the  lane  a  piece  lived  an  elephant  in  the  shade  of  a 
noble  tree,  and  rocked  and  rocked,  and  reached 
about  with  his  trunk,  begging  of  his  brown  mistress 
or  fumbling  the  children  playing  at  his  feet.  And 
there  were  camels  about,  but  they  go  on  velvet  feet, 
and  were  proper  to  the  silence  and  serenity  of  the 
surroundings. 

The  Satan  mentioned  at  the  head  of  this  chapter 
was  not  our  Satan,  but  the  other  one.  Our  Satan 
was  lost  to  us.  In  these  later  days  he  had  passed 
out  of  our  life — lamented  by  me,  and  sincerely.  I 
was  missing  him;  I  am  missing  him  yet,  after  all 
these  months.  He  was  an  astonishing  creature  to 
fly  around  and  do  things.  He  didn't  always  do 
them  quite  right,  but  he  did  them,  and  did  them 
suddenly.  There  was  no  time  wasted.  You  would 
say: 

"Pack  the  trunks  and  bags,  Satan." 

"Wair  good"  (very  good). 

Then  there  would  be  a  brief  sound  of  thrashing 
and  slashing  and  humming  and  buzzing,  and  a  spec 
tacle  as  of  a  whirlwind  spinning  gowns  and  jackets 
and  coats  and  boots  and  things  through  the  air,  and 
then — with  bow  and  touch: 

"Awready,  master." 

It  was  wonderful.  It  made  one  dizzy.  He 
crumpled  dresses  a  good  deal,  and  he  had  no  par 
ticular  plan  about  the  work  —  at  first  —  except  to 
put  each  article  into  the  trunk  it  didn't  belong  in. 

265 


MARK    TWAIN 

But  he  soon  reformed,  in  this  matter.  Not  entirely; 
for,  to  the  last,  he  would  cram  into  the  satchel 
sacred  to  literature  any  odds  and  ends  of  rubbish 
that  he  couldn't  find  a  handy  place  for  elsewhere. 
When  threatened  with  death  for  this,  it  did  not 
trouble  him;  he  only  looked  pleasant,  saluted  with 
soldierly  grace,  said  "Wair  good,"  and  did  it  again 
next  day. 

He  was  always  busy;  kept  the  rooms  tidied  up, 
the  boots  polished,  the  clothes  brushed,  the  wash 
basin  full  of  clean  water,  my  dress-clothes  laid  out 
and  ready  for  the  lecture-hall  an  hour  ahead  of  time ; 
and  he  dressed  me  from  head  to  heel  in  spite  of  my 
determination  to  do  it  myself,  according  to  my  life 
long  custom. 

He  was  a  born  boss,  and  loved  to  command,  and 
to  jaw  and  dispute  with  inferiors  and  harry  them 
and  bullyrag  them.  He  was  fine  at  the  railway- 
station — yes,  he  was  at  his  finest  there.  He  would 
shoulder  and  plunge  and  paw  his  violent  way  through 
the  packed  multitude  of  natives  with  nineteen  coolies 
at  his  tail,  each  bearing  a  trifle  of  luggage — one  a 
trunk,  another  a  parasol,  another  a  shawl,  another  a 
fan,  and  so  on;  one  article  to  each,  and  the  longer 
the  procession,  the  better  he  was  suited — and  he 
was  sure  to  make  for  some  engaged  sleeper  and 
begin  to  hurl  the  owner's  things  out  of  it,  swearing 
that  it  was  ours  and  that  there  had  been  a  mistake. 
Arrived  at  our  own  sleeper,  he  would  undo  the 
bedding-bundles  and  make  the  beds  and  put  every 
thing  to  rights  and  shipshape  in  two  minutes;  then 
put  his  head  out  at  a  window  and  have  a  restful  good 

266 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

time  abusing  his  gang  of  coolies  and  disputing  their 
bill  until  we  arrived  and  made  him  pay  them  and 
stop  his  noise. 

Speaking  of  noise,  he  certainly  was  the  noisiest 
little  devil  in  India — and  that  is  saying  much,  very 
much,  indeed.  I  loved  him  for  his  noise,  but  the 
family  detested  him  for  it.  They  could  not  abide 
it ;  they  could  not  get  reconciled  to  it.  It  humiliated 
them.  As  a  rule,  when  we  got  within  six  hundred 
yards  of  one  of  those  big  railway-stations,  a  mighty 
racket  of  screaming  and  shrieking  and  shouting  and 
storming  would  break  upon  us,  and  I  would  be  happy 
to  myself,  and  the  family  would  say,  with  shame: 

"There— that's  Satan.    Why  do  you  keep  him?" 

And,  sure  enough,  there  in  the  whirling  midst  of 
fifteen  hundred  wondering  people  we  would  find  that 
little  scrap  of  a  creature  gesticulating  like  a  spider 
with  the  colic,  his  black  eyes  snapping,  his  fez-tassel 
dancing,  his  jaws  pouring  out  floods  of  billingsgate 
upon  his  gang  of  beseeching  and  astonished  coolies. 

I  loved  him;  I  couldn't  help  it;  but  the  family — 
why,  they  could  hardly  speak  of  him  with  patience. 
To  this  day  I  regret  his  loss,  and  wish  I  had  him 
back;  but  they — it  is  different  with  them.  He  was 
a  native,  and  came  from  Surat.  Twenty  degrees  of 
latitude  lay  between  his  birthplace  and  Manuel's, 
and  fifteen  hundred  between  their  ways  and  char 
acters  and  dispositions.  I  only  liked  Manuel,  but  I 
loved  Satan.  This  latter's  real  name  was  intensely 
Indian.  I  could  not  quite  get  the  hang  of  it,  but  it 
soundedlike  Bunder  Rao  RamChunder  Clam  Chowder. 
It  was  too  long  for  handy  use,  anyway ;  so  I  reduced  it. 

267 


MARK     TWAIN 

When  he  had  been  with  us  two  or  three  weeks,  he 
began  to  make  mistakes  which  I  had  difficulty  in 
patching  up  for  him.  Approaching  Benares  one 
day,  he  got  out  of  the  train  to  see  if  he  could  get 
up  a  misunderstanding  with  somebody,  for  it  had 
been  a  weary,  long  journey  and  he  wanted  to  freshen 
up.  He  found  what  he  was  after,  but  kept  up  his 
pow-wow  a  shade  too  long  and  got  left.  So  there 
we  were  in  a  strange  city  and  no  chambermaid.  It 
was  awkward  for  us,  and  we  told  him  he  must  not 
do  so  any  more.  He  saluted  and  said  in  his  dear, 
pleasant  way,  "Wair  good."  Then  at  Lucknow  he 
got  drunk.  I  said  it  was  a  fever,  and  got  the  family's 
compassion  and  solicitude  aroused;  so  they  gave 
him  a  teaspoonful  of  liquid  quinine  and  it  set  his 
vitals  on  fire.  He  made  several  grimaces  which 
gave  me  a  better  idea  of  the  Lisbon  earthquake  than 
any  I  have  ever  got  of  it  from  paintings  and  descrip 
tions.  His  drunk  was  still  portentously  solid  next 
morning,  but  I  could  have  pulled  him  through  with 
the  family  if  he  would  only  have  taken  another 
spoonful  of  that  remedy;  but  no,  although  he  was 
stupefied,  his  memory  still  had  flickerings  of  life; 
so  he  smiled  a  divinely  dull  smile  and  said,  fum- 
blingly  saluting: 

"Scoose  me,  mem  Saheb,  scoose  me,  Missy  Saheb; 
Satan  not  prefer  it,  please." 

Then  some  instinct  revealed  to  them  that  he  was 
drunk.  They  gave  him  prompt  notice  that  next 
time  this  happened  he  must  go.  He  got  out  a 
maudlin  and  most  gentle  "Wair  good,"  and  saluted 
indefinitely. 

268 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

Only  one  short  week  later  he  fell  again.  And  oh, 
sorrow!  not  in  a  hotel  this  time,  but  in  an  English 
gentleman's  private  house.  And  in  Agra,  of  all 
places.  So  he  had  to  go.  When  I  told  him,  he 
said  patiently,  "Wair  good,"  and  made  his  parting 
salute,  and  went  out  from  us  to  return  no  more 
forever.  Dear  me!  I  would  rather  have  lost  a 
hundred  angels  than  that  one  poor  lovely  devil. 
What  style  he  used  to  put  on,  in  a  swell  hotel  or  in 
a  private  house — snow-white  muslin  from  his  chin 
to  his  bare  feet,  a  crimson  sash  embroidered  with 
gold  thread  around  his  waist,  and  on  his  head  a 
great  sea-green  turban  like  to  the  turban  of  the 
Grand  Turk. 

He  was  not  a  liar,  but  he  will  become  one  if  he 
keeps  on.  He  told  me  once  that  he  used  to  crack 
cocoanuts  with  his  teeth  when  he  was  a  boy;  and 
when  I  asked  how  he  got  them  into  his  mouth,  he 
said  he  was  upward  of  six  feet  high  at  that  time, 
and  had  an  unusual  mouth.  And  when  I  followed 
him  up  and  asked  him  what  had  become  of  that 
other  foot,  he  said  a  house  fell  on  him  and  he  was 
never  able  to  get  his  stature  back  again.  Swervings 
like  these  from  the  strict  line  of  fact  often  beguile  a 
truthful  man  on  and  on  until  he  eventually  becomes 
a  liar. 

His  successor  was  a  Mohammedan,  Sahadat  Mo 
hammed  Khan;  very  dark,  very  tall,  very  grave, 
He  went  always  in  flowing  masses  of  white,  from 
the  top  of  his  big  turban  down  to  his  bare  feet. 
His  voice  was  low.  He  glided  about  in  a  noiseless 
way,  and  looked  like  a  ghost.  He  was  competent 

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MARK    TWAIN 

and  satisfactory.  But  where  he  was,  it  seemed 
always  Sunday.  It  was  not  so  in  Satan's  time. 

Jeypore  is  intensely  Indian,  but  it  has  two  or  three 
features  which  indicate  the  presence  of  European 
science  and  European  interest  in  the  weal  of  the 
common  public,  such  as  the  liberal  water-supply 
furnished  by  great  works  built  at  the  state's  ex 
pense;  good  sanitation,  resulting  in  a  degree  of 
healthf ulness  unusually  high  for  India;  a  noble 
pleasure  garden,  with  privileged  days  for  women; 
schools  for  the  instruction  of  native  youth  in  ad 
vanced  art,  both  ornamental  and  utilitarian;  and  a 
new  and  beautiful  palace  stocked  with  a  museum 
of  extraordinary  interest  and  value.  Without  the 
Maharaja's  sympathy  and  purse  these  beneficences 
could  not  have  been  created;  but  he  is  a  man  of 
wide  views  and  large  generosities,  and  all  such  mat 
ters  find  hospitality  with  him, 

We  drove  often  to  the  city  from  the  hotel  Kaiser- 
i-Hind,  a  journey  which  was  always  full  of  interest, 
both  night  and  day,  for  that  country  road  was  never 
quiet,  never  empty,  but  was  always  India  in  motion, 
always  a  streaming  flood  of  brown  people  clothed  in 
smouchings  from  the  rainbow,  a  tossing  and  moiling 
flood,  happy,  noisy,  a  charming  and  satisfying  con 
fusion  of  strange  human  and  strange  animal  life  and 
equally  strange  and  outlandish  vehicles. 

And  the  city  itself  is  a  curiosity.  Any  Indian 
city  is  that,  but  this  one  is  not  like  any  other  that 
we  saw.  It  is  shut  up  in  a  lofty  turreted  wall;  the 
main  body  of  it  is  divided  into  six  parts  by  perfectly 
straight  streets  that  are  more  than  a  hundred  feet 

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FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

wide;  the  blocks  of  houses  exhibit  a  long  frontage 
of  the  most  taking  architectural  quaintnesses,  the 
straight  lines  being  broken  everywhere  by  pretty 
little  balconies,  pillared  and  highly  ornamented,  and 
other  cunning  and  cozy  and  inviting  perches  and 
projections,  and  many  of  the  fronts  are  curiously 
pictured  by  the  brush,  and  the  whole  of  them  have 
the  soft  rich  tint  of  strawberry  ice-cream.  One  can 
not  look  down  the  far  stretch  of  the  chief  street 
and  persuade  himself  that  these  are  real  houses, 
and  that  it  is  all  out-of-doors — the  impression  that 
it  is  an  unreality,  a  picture,  a  scene  in  a  theater,  is 
the  only  one  that  will  take  hold. 

Then  there  came  a  great  day  when  this  illusion 
was  more  pronounced  than  ever.  A  rich  Hindu 
had  been  spending  a  fortune  upon  the  manufacture 
of  a  crowd  of  idols  and  accompanying  paraphernalia 
whose  purpose  was  to  illustrate  scenes  in  the  life  of 
his  especial  god  or  saint,  and  this  fine  show  was  to 
be  brought  through  the  town  in  processional  state 
at  ten  in  the  morning.  As  we  passed  through  the 
great  public  pleasure  garden  on  our  way  to  the  city 
we  found  it  crowded  with  natives.  That  was  one 
sight.  Then  there  was  another.  In  the  midst  of 
the  spacious  lawns  stands  the  palace  which  contains 
the  museum — a  beautiful  construction  of  stone  which 
shows  arched  colonnades,  one  above  another,  and 
receding,  terrace-fashion,  toward  the  sky.  Every 
one  of  these  terraces,  all  the  way  to  the  top  one, 
was  packed  and  jammed  with  natives.  One  must 
try  to  imagine  those  solid  masses  of  splendid  color, 
one  above  another,  up  and  up,  against  the  blue 

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MARK    TWAIN 

sky,  and  the  Indian  sun  turning  them  all  to  beds  of 
fire  and  flame. 

Later,  when  we  reached  the  city,  and  glanced 
down  the  chief  avenue,  smoldering  in  its  crushed- 
strawberry  tint,  those  splendid  effects  were  repeated; 
for  every  balcony,  and  every  fanciful  bird-cage  of  a 
snuggery  countersunk  in  the  house-fronts,  and  all 
the  long  lines  of  roofs,  were  crowded  with  people, 
and  each  crowd  was  an  explosion  of  brilliant  color. 

Then  the  wide  street  itself,  away  down  and  down 
and  down  into  the  distance,  was  alive  with  gor 
geously  clothed  people — not  still,  but  moving,  sway 
ing,  drifting,  eddying,  a  delirious  display  of  all  colors 
and  all  shades  of  color,  delicate,  lovely,  pale,  soft, 
strong,  stunning,  vivid,  brilliant,  a  sort  of  storm  of 
sweet-pea  blossoms  passing  on  the  wings  of  a  hurri 
cane;  and  presently,  through  this  storm  of  color, 
came  swaying  and  swinging  the  majestic  elephants, 
clothed  in  their  Sunday  best  of  gaudinesses,  and  the 
long  procession  of  fanciful  trucks  freighted  with 
their  groups  of  curious  and  costly  images,  and  then 
the  long  rear-guard  of  stately  camels,  with  their 
picturesque  riders. 

For  color,  and  picturesqueness,  and  novelty,  and 
outlandishness,  and  sustained  interest  and  fascina 
tion,  it  was  the  most  satisfying  show  I  had  ever 
seen,  and  I  suppose  I  shall  not  have  the  privilege  of 
looking  upon  its  like  again. 


272 


CHAPTER  XXV 

BABU  ERRORS  NO  WORSE  THAN  OURS 

In  the  first  place  God  made  idiots.     This  was  for  practice.     Then  He  made 
School  Boards. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

SUPPOSE  we  applied  no  more  ingenuity  to  the 
instruction  of  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind  children 
than  we  sometimes  apply  in  our  American  public 
schools  to  the  instruction  of  children  who  are  in 
possession  of  all  their  faculties?  The  result  would 
be  that  the  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind  would  acquire 
nothing.  They  would  live  and  die  as  ignorant  as 
bricks  and  stones.  The  methods  used  in  the  asylums 
are  rational.  The  teacher  exactly  measures  the 
child's  capacity,  to  begin  with;  and  from  thence 
onward  the  tasks  imposed  are  nicely  gaged  to  the 
gradual  development  of  that  capacity;  the  tasks 
keep  pace  with  the  steps  of  the  child's  progress, 
they  don't  jump  miles  and  leagues  ahead  of  it  by 
irrational  caprice  and  land  in  vacancy — according  to 
the  average  public-school  plan.  In  the  public  school, 
apparently,  they  teach  the  child  to  spell  cat,  then 
ask  it  to  calculate  an  eclipse;  when  it  can  read 
words  of  two  syllables,  they  require  it  to  explain 
the  circulation  of  the  blood;  when  it  reaches  the 
head  of  the  infant  class  they  bully  it  with  conun 
drums  that  cover  the  domain  of  universal  knowledge. 
This  sounds  extravagant — and  is;  yet  it  goes  no 
great  way  beyond  the  facts. 

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MARK     TWAIN 

I  received  a  curious  letter  one  day,  from  the 
Punjab  (you  must  pronounce  it  Punjawb).  The 
handwriting  was  excellent,  and  the  wording  was 
English — English,  and  yet  not  exactly  English.  The 
style  was  easy  and  smooth  and  flowing,  yet  there 
was  something  subtly  foreign  about  it — something 
tropically  ornate  and  sentimental  and  rhetorical.  It 
turned  out  to  be  the  work  of  a  Hindu  youth,  the 
holder  of  a  humble  clerical  billet  in  a  railway  office. 
He  had  been  educated  in  one  of  the  numerous 
colleges  of  India.  Upon  inquiry  I  was  told  that 
the  country  was  full  of  young  fellows  of  his  like. 
They  had  been  educated  away  up  to  the  snow- 
summits  of  learning — and  the  market  for  all  this 
elaborate  cultivation  was  minutely  out  of  proportion 
to  the  vastness  of  the  product.  This  market  con 
sisted  of  some  thousands  of  small  clerical  posts 
under  the  government — the  supply  of  material  for 
it  was  multitudinous.  If  this  youth  with  the  flowing 
style  and  the  blossoming  English  was  occupying  a 
small  railway  clerkship,  it  meant  that  there  were 
hundreds  and  hundreds  as  capable  as  he,  or  he 
would  be  in  a  high  place;  and  it  certainly  meant 
that  there  were  thousands  whose  education  and 
capacity  had  fallen  a  little  short,  and  that  they  would 
have  to  go  without  places.  Apparently,  then,  the 
colleges  of  India  were  doing  what  our  high  schools 
have  long  been  doing  —  richly  oversupplying  the 
market  for  highly  educated  service;  and  thereby 
doing  a  damage  to  the  scholar,  and  through  him  to 
the  country. 

At  home  I  once  made  a  speech  deploring  the 

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FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

injuries  inflicted  by  the  high  school  in  making  handi 
crafts  distasteful  to  boys  who  would  have  been  willing 
to  make  a  living  at  trades  and  agriculture  if  they 
had  but  had  the  good  luck  to  stop  with  the  common 
school.  But  I  made  no  converts.  Not  one,  in  a 
community  overrun  with  educated  idlers  who  were 
above  following  their  fathers'  mechanical  trades,  yet 
could  find  no  market  for  their  book-knowledge.  The 
same  mail  that  brought  me  the  letter  from  the 
Punjab,  brought  also  a  little  book  published  by 
Messrs.  Thacker,  Spink  &  Co.,  of  Calcutta,  which 
interested  me,  for  both  its  preface  and  its  contents 
treated  of  this  matter  of  over-education.  In  the 
preface  occurs  this  paragraph  from  the  Calcutta 
Review.  For  "government  office"  read  "dry-goods 
clerkship"  and  it  will  fit  more  than  one  region  of 
America : 

The  education  that  we  give  makes  the  boys  a  little  less  clown 
ish  in  their  manners,  and  more  intelligent  when  spoken  to  by 
strangers.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  made  them  less  contented 
with  their  lot  in  life,  and  less  willing  to  work  with  their  hands. 
The  form  which  discontent  takes  in  this  country  is  not  of  a 
healthy  kind;  for  the  Natives  of  India  consider  that  the  only 
occupation  worthy  of  an  educated  man  is  that  of  a  writership 
in  some  office,  and  especially  in  a  government  office.  The  vil 
lage  school-boy  goes  back  to  the  plow  with  the  greatest  reluctance; 
and  the  town  school-boy  carries  the  same  discontent  and  ineffi 
ciency  into  his  father's  workshop.  Sometimes  these  ex-students 
positively  refuse  at  first  to  work;  and  more  than  once  parents 
have  openly  expressed  their  regret  that  they  ever  allowed  their 
sons  to  be  inveigled  to  school. 

The  little  book  which  I  am  quoting  from  is  called 
Indo-Anglian  Literature,  and  is  well  stocked  with 
"baboo"  English— clerkly  English,  booky  English, 

275 


MARK    TWAIN 

acquired  in  the  schools.  Some  of  it  is  very  funny — 
almost  as  funny,  perhaps,  as  what  you  and  I  produce 
when  we  try  to  write  in  a  language  not  our  own; 
but  much  of  it  is  surprisingly  correct  and  free.  If 
I  were  going  to  quote  good  English — but  I  am  not. 
India  is  well  stocked  with  natives  who  speak  it  and 
write  it  as  well  as  the  best  of  us.  I  merely  wish  to 
show  some  of  the  quaint  imperfect  attempts  at  the 
use  of  our  tongue.  There  are  many  letters  in  the 
book;  poverty  imploring  help — bread,  money,  kind 
ness,  office — generally  an  office,  a  clerkship,  some 
way  to  get  food  and  a  rag  out  of  the  applicant's 
unmarketable  education;  and  food  not  for  himself 
alone,  but  sometimes  for  a  dozen  helpless  relations 
in  addition  to  his  own  family;  for  those  people  are 
astonishingly  unselfish,  and  admirably  faithful  to 
their  ties  of  kinship.  Among  us  I  think  there  is 
nothing  approaching  it.  Strange  as  some  of  these 
wailing  and  supplicating  letters  are,  humble  and  even 
groveling  as  some  of  them  are,  and  quaintly  funny 
and  confused  as  a  goodly  number  of  them  are,  there 
is  still  a  pathos  about  them,  as  a  rule,  that  checks 
the  rising  laugh  and  reproaches  it.  In  the  following 
letter  "father"  is  not  to  be  read  literally.  In  Ceylon 
a  little  native  beggar-girl  embarrassed  me  by  calling 
me  father,  although  I  knew  she  was  mistaken.  I 
was  so  new  that  I  did  not  know  that  she  was  merely 
following  the  custom  of  the  dependent  and  the 
supplicant. 

SIR: 

I  pray  please  to  give  me  some  action  (work)  for  I  am  very 
poor  boy  I  have  no  one  to  help  me  even  so  father  for  it  so  it 

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

seemed  in  thy  good  sight,  you  give  the  Telegraph  Office,  and 
another  work  what  is  your  wish  I  am  very  poor  boy,  this  under 
stand  what  is  your  wish  you  my  father  I  am  your  son  this 
understand  what  is  your  wish. 

Your  Sirvent,  P.  C.  B. 

Through  ages  of  debasing  oppression  suffered  by 
these  people  at  the  hands  of  their  native  rulers,  they 
come  legitimately  by  the  attitude  and  language  of 
fawning  and  flattery,  and  one  must  remember  this 
in  mitigation  when  passing  judgment  upon  the  native 
character.  It  is  common  in  these  letters  to  find  the 
petitioner  furtively  trying  to  get  at  the  white  man's 
soft  religious  side;  even  this  poor  boy  baits  his 
hook  with  a  macerated  Bible  text  in  the  hope  that 
it  may  catch  something  if  all  else  fail. 

Here  is  an  application  for  the  post  of  instructor 
in  English  to  some  children: 

My  Dear  Sir  or  Gentleman,  that  your  Petitioner  has  much 
qualification  in  the  Language  of  English  to  instruct  the  young 
boys;  I  was  given  to  understand  that  your  of  suitable  children 
has  to  acquire  the  knowledge  of  English  language. 

As  a  sample  of  the  flowery  Eastern  style,  I  will 
take  a  sentence  or  two  from  a  long  letter  written  by 
a  young  native  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal 
— an  application  for  employment: 

HONORED  AND  MUCH  RESPECTED  SIR: 

I  hope  your  honor  will  condescend  to  hear  the  tale  of  this 
poor  creature.  I  shall  overflow  with  gratitude  at  this  mark  of 
your  royal  condescension.  The  birdlike  happiness  has  flown 
away  from  my  nestlike  heart  and  has  not  hitherto  returned 
from  the  period  whence  the  rose  of  my  father's  life  suffered  the 
autumnal  breath  of  death,  in  plain  English  he  passed  through 
the  gates  of  Grave,  and  from  that  hour  the  phantom  of  delight 
has  never  danced  before  me. 

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MARK     TWAIN 

It  is  all  school-English,  book-English,  you  see; 
and  good  enough,  too,  all  things  considered.  If  the 
native  boy  had  but  that  one  study  he  would  shine, 
he  would  dazzle,  no  doubt.  But  that  is  not  the 
case.  He  is  situated  as  are  our  public-school  chil 
dren — loaded  down  with  an  over-freightage  of  other 
studies;  and  frequently  they  are  as  far  beyond  the 
actual  point  of  progress  reached  by  him  and  suited 
to  the  stage  of  development  attained,  as  could  be 
imagined  by  the  insanest  fancy.  Apparently — like 
our  public-school  boy — he  must  work,  work,  work, 
in  school  and  out,  and  play  but  little.  Apparently— 
like  our  public-school  boy — his  "education"  consists 
in  learning  things,  not  the  meaning  of  them;  he  is 
fed  upon  the  husks,  not  the  corn.  From  several 
essays  written  by  native  school-boys  in  answer  to 
the  question  of  how  they  spend  their  day,  I  select 
one — the  one  which  goes  most  into  detail: 

66.  At  the  break  of  day  I  rises  from  my  own  bed  and  finish 
my  daily  duty,  then  I  employ  myself  till  8  o'clock,  after  which 
I  employ  myself  to  bathe,  then  take  for  my  body  some  sweet 
meat,  and  just  at  g>£  I  came  to  school  to  attend  my  class  duty, 
then,  at  2^2  P.M.  I  returned  from  school  and  engage  myself  to 
do  my  natural  duty,  then  I  engage  for  a  quarter  to  take  my 
tiffin,  then  I  study  till  5  P.M.,  after  which  I  began  to  play  any 
thing  which  comes  in  my  head.  After  8^  half  pass  to  eight  we 
are  began  to  sleep,  before  sleeping  I  told  a  constable  just  n  o' 
he  came  and  rose  us  from  half  pass  eleven  we  began  to  read  still 
morning. 

It  is  not  perfectly  clear,  now  that  I  come  to  cipher 
upon  it.  He  gets  up  at  about  five  in  the  morning,  or 
along  there  somewhere,  and  goes  to  bed  about 
fifteen  or  sixteen  hours  afterward — that  much  of  it 

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FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

seems  straight;  but  why  he  should  rise  again  three 
hours  later  and  resume  his  studies  till  morning  is 
puzzling. 

I  think  it  is  because  he  is  studying  history.  His 
tory  requires  a  world  of  time  and  bitter  hard  work 
when  your  "education"  is  no  further  advanced  than 
the  cat's;  when  you  are  merely  stuffing  yourself 
with  a  mixed-up  mess  of  empty  names  and  random 
incidents  and  elusive  dates,  which  no  one  teaches 
you  how  to  interpret,  and  which,  uninterpreted,  pay 
you  not  a  farthing's  value  for  your  waste  of  time. 
Yes,  I  think  he  had  to  get  up  at  half  past  n  P.M. 
in  order  to  be  sure  to  be  perfect  with  his  history 
lesson  by  noon.  With  results  as  follows — from  a 
Calcutta  school  examination : 

Q.  Who  was  Cardinal  Wolsey? 

Cardinal  Wolsey  was  an  Editor  of  a  paper  named  North  Briton. 
No.  45  of  his  publication  he  charged  the  King  of  uttering  a  lie 
from  the  throne.  He  was  arrested  and  cast  into  prison;  and 
after  releasing  went  to  France. 

3.  As  Bishop  of  York  but  died  in  disentry  in  a  church  on  his 
way  to  be  blockheaded. 

8.  Cardinal  Wolsey  was  the  son  of  Edward  IV.,  after  his  father's 
death  he  himself  ascended  the  throne  at  the  age  of  (10)  ten 
only,  but  when  he  surpassed  or  when  he  was  fallen  in  his  twenty 
years  of  age  at  that  time  he  wished  to  make  a  journey  in  his 
countries  under  him,  but  he  was  opposed  by  his  mother  to  do 
journey,  and  according  to  his  mother's  example  he  remained 
in  the  home,  and  then  became  King.  After  many  times  obsta 
cles  and  many  confusion  he  become  King  and  afterward  his 
brother. 

There  is  probably  not  a  word  of  truth  in  that. 

Q.  What  is  the  meaning  of  Ich  Dien? 

10.  An  honor  conferred  on  the  first  or  eldest  sens  of  English 
Sovereigns.  It  is  nothing  more  than  some  feathers. 

279 


MARK    TWAIN 

ii.  Ich  Dien  was  the  word  which  was  written  on  the  feathers 
of  the  blind  King  who  came  to  fight,  being  interlaced  with  the 
bridles  of  the  horse. 

13.  Ich  Dien  is  a  title  given  to  Henry  VII.  by  the  Pope  of 
Rome,  when  he  forwarded  the  Reformation  of  Cardinal  Wolsy 
to  Rome,  and  for  this  reason  he  was  called  Commander  of  the 
faith. 

A  dozen  or  so  of  this  kind  of  insane  answers  are 
quoted  in  the  book  from  that  examination.  Each 
answer  is  sweeping  proof,  all  by  itself,  that  the 
person  uttering  it  was  pushed  ahead  of  where  he 
belonged  when  he  was  put  into  history;  proof  that 
he  had  been  put  to  the  task  of  acquiring  history  be 
fore  he  had  had  a  single  lesson  in  the  art  of  acquiring 
it,  which  is  the  equivalent  of  dumping  a  pupil  into 
geometry  before  he  has  learned  the  progressive  steps 
which  lead  up  to  it  and  make  its  acquirement  pos 
sible.  Those  Calcutta  novices  had  no  business  with 
history.  There  was  no  excuse  for  examining  them 
in  it,  no  excuse  for  exposing  them  and  their  teachers. 
They  were  totally  empty;  there  was  nothing  to 
"examine." 

Helen  Keller  has  been  dumb,  stone  deaf,  and 
stone  blind,  ever  since  she  was  a  little  baby  a  year 
and  a  half  old;  and  now  at  sixteen  years  of  age  this 
miraculous  creature,  this  wonder  of  all  ages,  passes 
the  Harvard  University  examination  in  Latin,  Ger 
man,  French  history,  belles-lettres,  and  such  things, 
and  does  it  brilliantly,  too,  not  in  a  commonplace 
fashion.  She  doesn't  know  merely  things,  she  is 
splendidly  familiar  with  the  meanings  of  them. 
When  she  writes  an  essay  on  a  Shakespearean  char 
acter,  her  English  is  fine  and  strong,  her  grasp  of 

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FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

the  subject  is  the  grasp  of  one  who  knows,  and  her 
page  is  electric  with  light.  Has  Miss  Sullivan  taught 
her  by  the  methods  of  India  and  the  American 
public  school?  No,  oh,  no;  for  then  she  would  be 
deafer  and  dumber  and  blinder  than  she  was  before. 
It  is  a  pity  that  we  can't  educate  all  the  children  in 
the  asylums. 

To  continue  the  Calcutta  exposure: 

What  is  the  meaning  of  a  Sheriff? 

25.  Sheriff  is  a  post  opened  in  the  time  of  John.    The  duty  of 
Sheriff  here  in  Calcutta,  to  look  out  and  catch  those  carriages 
which  is  rashly  driven  out  by  the  coachman;   but  it  is  a  high 
post  in  England. 

26.  Sheriff  was  the  English  bill  of  common  prayer. 

27.  The  man  with  whom  the  accusative  persons  are  placed  is 
called  Sheriff. 

28.  Sheriff — Latin  term  for  "shrub,"  we  called  broom,  worn 
by  the  first  earl  of  Enjue,  as  an  emblem  of  humility  when  they 
went  to  the  pilgrimage,  and  from  this  their  hairs  took  their 
crest  and  sur  name. 

29.  Sheriff  is  a  kind  of  titlous  sect  of  people,  as  Barons,  Nobles, 
etc. 

30.  Sheriff,  a  tittle  given  on  those  persons  who  were  respective 
and  pious  in  England. 

The  students  were  examined  in  the  following 
bulky  matters:  Geometry,  the  Solar  Spectrum,  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  British  Parliament,  and  in 
Metaphysics  they  were  asked  to  trace  the  progress 
of  skepticism  from  Descartes  to  Hume.  It  is  within 
bounds  to  say  that  some  of  the  results  were  astonish 
ing.  Without  doubt,  there  were  students  present 
who  justified  their  teachers*  wisdom  in  introducing 
them  to  these  studies;  but  the  fact  is  also  evident 
that  others  had  been  pushed  into  these  studies  to 

281 


MARK    TWAIN 

waste  their  time  over  them  when  they  could  have 
been  profitably  employed  in  hunting  smaller  game. 
Under  the  head  of  Geometry,  one  of  the  answers  is 
this: 

49.  The  whole  BD=the  whole  C A,  and  so-so-so-so-so-so — so. 

To  me  this  is  cloudy,  but  I  was  never  well  up  in 
geometry.  That  was  the  only  effort  made  among 
the  five  students  who  appeared  for  examination  in 
geometry;  the  other  four  wailed  and  surrendered 
without  a  fight.  They  are  piteous  wails,  too,  wails 
of  despair;  and  one  of  them  is  an  eloquent  reproach; 
it  comes  from  a  poor  fellow  who  has  been  laden 
beyond  his  strength  by  a  stupid  teacher,  and  is  elo 
quent  in  spite  of  the  poverty  of  its  English.  The 
poor  chap  finds  himself  required  to  explain  riddles 
which  even  Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  not  able  to  under 
stand. 

50.  Oh  my  dear  father  examiner  you  my  father  and  you 
kindly  give  a  number  of  pass  you  my  great  father. 

51.  I  am  a  poor  boy  and  have  no  means  to  support  my  mother 
and  two  brothers  who  are  suffering  much  for  want  of  food.    I 
get  four  rupees  monthly  from  charity  fund  of  this  place,  from 
which  I  send  two  rupees  for  their  support,  and  keep  two  for  my 
own  support.    Father,  if  I  relate  the  unlucky  circumstance  under 
which  we  are  placed,  then,  I  think,  you  will  not  be  able  to  sup 
press  the  tender  tear. 

52.  Sir  which  Sir  Isaac  Newton  and  other  experienced  mathe 
maticians  cannot  understand  I  being  third  of  Entrance  Class 
can  understand  these  which  is  too  impossible  to  imagine.     And 
my  examiner  also  has  put  very  tiresome  and  very  heavy  propo 
sitions  to  prove. 

We  must  remember  that  these  pupils  had  to  do 
their  thinking  in  one  language,  and  express  them- 

282 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

selves  in  another  and  alien  one.  It  was  a  heavy 
handicap.  I  have  by  me  English  as  She  is  Taught 
— a  collection  of  American  examinations  made  in 
the  public  schools  of  Brooklyn  by  one  of  the  teachers, 
Miss  Caroline  B.  Le  Row.  An  extract  or  two  from 
its  pages  will  show  that  when  the  American  pupil 
is  using  but  one  language,  and  that  one  his  own, 
his  performance  is  no  whit  better  than  his  Indian 

brother's : 

ON  HISTORY 

Christopher  Columbus  was  called  the  father  of  his  Country. 
Queen  Isabella  of  Spain  sold  her  watch  and  chain  and  other 
millinery  so  that  Columbus  could  discover  America. 

The  Indian  wars  were  very  desecrating  to  the  country. 

The  Indians  pursued  their  warfare  by  hiding  in  the  bushes 
and  then  scalping  them. 

Captain  John  Smith  has  been  styled  the  father  of  his  country. 
His  life  was  saved  by  his  daughter  Pochahantas. 

The  Puritans  found  an  insane  asylum  in  the  wilds  of  America. 

The  Stamp  Act  was  to  make  everybody  stamp  all  materials 
so  they  should  be  null  and  void. 

Washington  died  in  Spain  almost  broken-hearted.  His  re 
mains  were  taken  to  the  cathedral  in  Havana. 

Gorilla  warfare  was  where  men  rode  on  gorillas. 

In  Brooklyn,  as  in  India,  they  examine  a  pupil, 
and  when  they  find  out  he  doesn't  know  anything, 
they  put  him  into  literature,  or  geometry,  or  astron 
omy,  or  government,  or  something  like  that,  so  that 
he  can  properly  display  the  assification  of  the  whole 

system : 

ON  LITERATURE 

Bracebridge  Hall  was  written  by  Henry  Irving. 
Edgar  A.  Poe  was  a  very  curdling  writer. 
Beowulf  wrote  the  Scriptures. 

Ben  Johnson  survived  Shakespeare  in  some  respects. 

283 


MARK     TWAIN 

In  the  Canterbury  Tale  it  gives  account  of  King  Alfred  on  his 
way  to  the  shrine  of  Thomas  Bucket. 

Chaucer  was  the  father  of  English  pottery. 
Chaucer  was  succeeded  by  H.  Wads.  Longfellow. 

We  will  finish  with  a  couple  of  samples  of  "  litera 
ture,  " — one  from  America,  the  other  from  India. 
The  first  is  a  Brooklyn  public-school  boy's  attempt 
to  turn  a  few  verses  of  the  Lady  of  the  Lake  into 
prose.  You  will  have  to  concede  that  he  did  it : 

The  man  who  rode  on  the  horse  performed  the  whip  and  an 
instrument  made  of  steel  alone  with  strong  ardor  not  diminishing, 
for,  being  tired  from  the  time  passed  with  hard  labor  overworked 
with  anger  and  ignorant  with  weariness,  while  every  breath 
for  labor  he  drew  with  cries  full  of  sorrow,  the  young  deer  made 
imperfect  who  worked  hard  filtered  in  sight. 

The  following  paragraph  is  from  a  little  book 
which  is  famous  in  India — the  biography  of  a 
distinguished  Hindu  judge,  Onoocool  Chunder  Mook- 
erjee;  it  was  written  by  his  nephew,  and  is  unin 
tentionally  funny — in  fact,  exceedingly  so.  I  offer 
here  the  closing  scene.  If  you  would  like  to  sample 
the  rest  of  the  book,  it  can  be  had  by  applying 
to  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Thacker,  Spink  &  Co., 
Calcutta : 

And  having  said  these  words  he  hermetically  sealed  his  lips 
not  to  open  them  again.  All  the  well-known  doctors  of  Calcutta 
that  could  be  procured  for  a  man  of  his  position  and  wealth 
were  brought — Doctors  Payne,  Fayrer,  and  Nilmadhub  Mooker- 
jee  and  others;  they  did  what  they  could  do,  with  their  puissance 
and  knack  of  medical  knowledge,  but  it  proved  after  all  as  if 
to  milk  the  ram!  His  wife  and  children  had  not  the  mournful 
consolation  to  hear  his  last  words;  he  remained  sotto  wee  for 
a  few  hours,  and  then  was  taken  from  us  at  6.12  P.M.  according 
to  the  caprice  of  God  which  passeth  understanding. 

284 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

AT  QUEER  MAURITIUS,  HOMEWARD  BOUND 

There  are  no  people  who  are  quite  so  vulgar  as  the  over-refined  ones. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WE  sailed  from  Calcutta  toward  the  end  of 
March;  stopped  a  day  at  Madras;  two  or 
three  days  in  Ceylon;  then  sailed  westward  on  a  long 
flight  for  Mauritius.  From  my  diary: 

April  7.  We  are  far  abroad  upon  the  smooth 
waters  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  now;  it  is  shady  and 
pleasant  and  peaceful  under  the  vast  spread  of  the 
awnings,  and  life  is  perfect  again — ideal. 

The  difference  between  a  river  and  a  sea  is,  that 
the  river  looks  fluid,  and  the  sea  solid — usually  looks 
as  if  you  could  step  out  and  walk  on  it. 

The  captain  has  this  peculiarity — he  cannot  tell 
the  truth  in  a  plausible  way.  In  this  he  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  austere  Scot  who  sits  midway  of  the 
table;  he  cannot  tell  a  lie  in  an  implausible  way. 
When  the  captain  finishes  a  statement  the  passengers 
glance  at  each  other  privately,  as  who  should  say, 
"Do  you  believe  that?'*  When  the  Scot  finishes 
one,  the  look  says,  "How  strange  and  interesting." 
The  whole  secret  is  in  the  manner  and  method  of 
the  two  men.  The  captain  is  a  little  shy  and  diffi 
dent,  and  he  states  the  simplest  fact  as  if  he  were  a 
little  afraid  of  it,  while  the  Scot  delivers  himself  of 

285 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  most  abandoned  lie  with  such  an  air  of  stern 
veracity  that  one  is  forced  to  believe  it  although  one 
knows  it  isn't  so.  For  instance,  the  Scot  told  about 
a  pet  flying-fish  he  once  owned,  that  lived  in  a  little 
fountain  in  his  conservatory,  and  supported  itself  by 
catching  birds  and  frogs  and  rats  in  the  neighboring 
fields.  It  was  plain  that  no  one  at  the  table  doubted 
this  statement. 

By  and  by,  in  the  course  of  some  talk  about 
custom-house  annoyances,  the  captain  brought  out 
the  following  simple  e very-day  incident,  but  through 
his  infirmity  of  style  managed  to  tell  it  in  such  a  way 
that  it  got  no  credence.  He  said: 

I  went  ashore  at  Naples  one  voyage  when  I  was  in  that  trade, 
and  stood  around  helping  my  passengers,  for  I  could  speak  a 
little  Italian.  Two  or  three  times,  at  intervals,  the  officer  asked 
me  if  I  had  anything  dutiable  about  me,  and  seemed  more  and 
more  put  out  and  disappointed  every  time  I  told  him  no. 
Finally,  a  passenger  whom  I  had  helped  through  asked  me  to 
come  out  and  take  something.  I  thanked  him,  but  excused 
myself,  saying  I  had  taken  a  whisky  just  before  I  came  ashore. 

It  was  a  fatal  admission.  The  officer  at  once  made  me  pay 
sixpence  import  duty  on  the  whisky — just  from  ship  to  shore, 
you  see;  and  he  fined  me  £5  for  not  declaring  the  goods,  another 
£5  for  falsely  denying  that  I  had  anything  dutiable  about  me, 
also  £5  for  concealing  the  goods,  and  £50  for  smuggling,  which 
is  the  maximum  penalty  for  unlawfully  bringing  in  goods  under 
the  value  of  sevenpence  ha'penny.  Altogether,  sixty-five 
pounds  sixpence  for  a  little  thing  like  that. 

The  Scot  is  always  believed,  yet  he  never  tells 
anything  but  lies;  whereas  the  captain  is  never  be 
lieved,  although  he  never  tells  a  lie,  so  far  as  I  can 
judge.  If  he  should  say  his  uncle  was  a  male  person, 
he  would  probably  say  it  in  such  a  way  that  nobody 

286 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

would  believe  it;  at  the  same  time  the  Scot  could 
claim  that  he  had  a  female  uncle  and  not  stir  a 
doubt  in  anybody's  mind.  My  own  luck  has  been 
curious  all  my  literary  life;  I  never  could  tell  a  lie 
that  anybody  would  doubt,  nor  a  truth  that  anybody 
would  believe. 

Lots  of  pets  on  board — birds  and  things.  In 
these  far  countries  the  white  people  do  seem  to  run 
remarkably  to  pets.  Our  host  in  Cawnpore  had  a 
fine  collection  of  birds — the  finest  we  saw  in  a  private 
house  in  India.  And  in  Colombo,  Dr.  Murray's 
great  compound  and  commodious  bungalow  were 
well  populated  with  domesticated  company  from  the 
woods:  frisky  little  squirrels;  a  Ceylon  mina  walk 
ing  sociably  about  the  house;  a  small  green  parrot 
that  whistled  a  single  urgent  note  of  call  without 
motion  of  its  beak,  also  chuckled;  a  monkey  in  a 
cage  on  the  back  veranda,  and  some  more  out  in 
the  trees;  also  a  number  of  beautiful  macaws  in  the 
trees;  and  various  and  sundry  birds  and  animals 
of  breeds  not  known  to  me.  But  no  cat.  Yet  a  cat 
would  have  liked  that  place. 

April  9.  Tea-planting  is  the  great  business  in 
Ceylon,  now.  A  passenger  says  it  often  pays  forty 
per  cent,  on  the  investment.  Says  there  is  a  boom. 

April  10.  The  sea  is  a  Mediterranean  blue;  and 
I  believe  that  that  is  about  the  divinest  color  known 
to  nature. 

It  is  strange  and  fine — Nature's  lavish  generosities 
to  her  creatures.  At  least  to  all  of  them  except 
man.  For  those  that  fly  she  has  provided  a  home 
that  is  nobly  spacious — a  home  which  is  forty  miles 


MARK    TWAIN 

deep  and  envelops  the  whole  globe,  and  has  not  an 
obstruction  in  it.  For  those  that  swim  she  has 
provided  a  more  than  imperial  domain — a  domain 
which  is  miles  deep  and  covers  four-fifths  of  the 
globe.  But  as  for  man,  she  has  cut  him  off  with  the 
mere  odds  and  ends  of  the  creation.  She  has  given 
him  the  thin  skin,  the  meager  skin  which  is  stretched 
over  the  remaining  one-fifth — the  naked  bones  stick 
up  through  it  in  most  places.  On  the  one-half  of 
this  domain  he  can  raise  snow,  ice,  sand,  rocks,  and 
nothing  else.  So  the  valuable  part  of  his  inheritance 
really  consists  of  but  a  single  fifth  of  the  family 
estate;  and  out  of  it  he  has  to  grub  hard  to  get 
enough  to  keep  him  alive  and  provide  kings  and 
soldiers  and  powder  to  extend  the  blessings  of  civili 
zation  with.  Yet  man,  in  his  simplicity  and  com 
placency  and  inability  to  cipher,  thinks  Nature  re 
gards  him  as  the  important  member  of  the  family — 
in  fact,  her  favorite.  Surely,  it  must  occur  to  even 
his  dull  head,  sometimes,  that  she  has  a  curious  way 
of  showing  it. 

Afternoon.  The  captain  has  been  telling  how,  in 
one  of  his  Arctic  voyages,  it  was  so  cold  that  the 
mate's  shadow  froze  fast  to  the  deck  and  had  to  be 
ripped  loose  by  main  strength.  And  even  then  he  got 
only  about  two-thirds  of  it  back.  Nobody  said  any 
thing,  and  the  captain  went  away.  I  think  he  is 
becoming  disheartened.  .  .  .  Also,  to  be  fair,  there 
is  another  word  of  praise  due  to  this  ship's  library: 
it  contains  no  copy  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  that 
strange  menagerie  of  complacent  hypocrites  and 
idiots,  of  theatrical  cheap-John  heroes  and  heroines, 

288 


MAR  VAIN 

deep  and  envelops  ^-e,  and  has  not  an 

obstruction  in  Hat  swim  she  has 

provided  a  m<  .perial  domain— a  domain 

which  is  mi.'  'vers  four-fifths  oi 

glo'  .  she  has  cut  him  off  with  • 

of  the  creation.    She  has  given 

^er  skin  which  is  stretched 

g  one-fifth  —the  naked  bones  stick 

most  places.     On  the  one-half  of 

a  •  •  T  .  ;  ise  snow,  ice,  sand,  rocks,  and 

he  valuable  part  of  his  inheritance 

MA" 
find  out  of  it 


occur  to  even 

dull  head,  sometimes,  that  she  has  a  curious  way 
of  showing  it. 

Afternoon.    The  captain  has  been  telling  how,  in 
one  of  dc  voyages,  it  was  so  cold  that  the 

mat  •>#  fast  to  the  deck  and  had  to  be 

4th.   And  even  ther 

ny- 

thr.  '  he  is 

becoming  dishe,  ir,  there 

is  another  p's  library: 

it  contains  no  copy  Wakefield,  that 

strange   mena;,  .ypocrites   and 

idiots,  of  theal  roes  and  heroines, 

288 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

who  are  always  showing  off,  of  bad  people  who  are 
not  interesting,  and  good  people  who  are  fatiguing. 
A  singular  book.  Not  a  sincere  line  in  it,  and  not 
a  character  that  invites  respect;  a  book  which  is 
one  long  waste-pipe  discharge  of  goody-goody  puerili 
ties  and  dreary  moralities;  a  book  which  is  full  of 
pathos  which  revolts,  and  humor  which  grieves  the 
heart.  There  are  few  things  in  literature  that  are 
more  piteous,  more  pathetic,  than  the  celebrated 
"humorous"  incident  of  Moses  and  the  spectacles. 

Jane  Austen's  books,  too,  are  absent  from  this 
library.  Just  that  one  omission  alone  would  make  a 
fairly  good  library  out  of  a  library  that  hadn't  a 
book  in  it. 

Customs  in  tropic  seas.  At  five  in  the  morning 
they  pipe  to  wash  down  the  decks,  and  at  once  the 
ladies  who  are  sleeping  there  turn  out  and  they  and 
their  beds  go  below.  Then  one  after  another  the 
men  come  up  from  the  bath  in  their  pajamas,  and 
walk  the  decks  an  hour  or  two  with  bare  legs  and 
bare  feet.  Coffee  and  fruit  served.  The  ship  cat  and 
her  kitten  now  appear  and  get  about  their  toilets; 
next  the  barber  comes  and  flays  us  on  the  breezy 
deck.  Breakfast  at  nine-thirty,  and  the  day  begins. 
I  do  not  know  how  a  day  could  be  more  reposeful :  no 
motion;  a  level  blue  sea;  nothing  in  sight  from 
horizon  to  horizon;  the  speed  of  the  ship  furnishes 
a  cooling  breeze;  there  is  no  mail  to  read  and  answer; 
no  newspapers  to  excite  you;  no  telegrams  to  fret 
you  or  fright  you — the  world  is  far,  far  away;  it 
has  ceased  to  exist  for  you — seemed  a  fading  dream, 
along  in  the  first  days;  has  dissolved  to  an  unreality 

289 


MARK     TWAIN 

now;  it  is  gone  from  your  mind  with  all  its  businesses 
and  ambitions,  its  prosperities  and  disasters,  its  exul 
tations  and  despairs,  its  joys  and  griefs  and  cares 
and  worries.  They  are  no  concern  of  yours  any 
more;  they  have  gone  out  of  your  life;  they  are 
a  storm  which  has  passed  and  left  a  deep  calm 
behind.  The  people  group  themselves  about  the 
decks  in  their  snowy-white  linen,  and  read,  smoke, 
sew,  play  cards,  talk,  nap,  and  so  on.  In  other 
ships  the  passengers  are  always  ciphering  about  when 
they  are  going  to  arrive;  out  in  these  seas  it  is  rare, 
very  rare,  to  hear  that  subject  broached.  In  other 
ships  there  is  always  an  eager  rush  to  the  bulletin- 
board  at  noon  to  find  out  what  the  "run"  has  been; 
in  these  seas  the  bulletin  seems  to  attract  no  interest; 
I  have  seen  no  one  visit  it;  in  thirteen  days  I  have 
visited  it  only  once.  Then  I  happened  to  notice  the 
figures  of  the  day's  run.  On  that  day  there  hap 
pened  to  be  talk,  at  dinner,  about  the  speed  of 
modern  ships.  I  was  the  only  passenger  present  who 
knew  this  ship's  gait.  Necessarily,  the  Atlantic 
custom  of  betting  on  the  ship's  run  is  not  a  custom 
here — nobody  ever  mentions  it. 

I  myself  am  wholly  indifferent  as  to  when  we  are 
going  to  ''get  in";  if  any  one  else  feels  interested 
in  the  matter  he  has  not  indicated  it  in  my  hearing. 
If  I  had  my  way  we  should  never  get  in  at  all.  This 
sort  of  sea -life  is  charged  with  an  indestructible 
charm.  There  is  no  weariness,  no  fatigue,  no  worry, 
no  responsibility,  no  work,  no  depression  of  spirits. 
There  is  nothing  like  this  serenity,  this  comfort,  this 
peace,  this  deep  contentment,  to  be  found  anywhere 

290 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

on  land.    If  I  had  my  way  I  would  sail  on  forever 
and  never  go  to  live  on  the  solid  ground  again. 

One  of  Kipling's  ballads  has  delivered  the  aspect 
and  sentiment  of  this  bewitching  sea  correctly: 

The  Injian  Ocean  sets  an'  smiles 
So  sof,  so  bright,  so  bloomin'  blue; 

There  aren't  a  wave  for  miles  an'  miles 
Excep'  the  jiggle  from  the  screw. 

April  14.  It  turns  out  that  the  astronomical  ap 
prentice  worked  off  a  section  of  the  Milky  Way  on 
me  for  the  Magellan  Clouds.  A  man  of  more  ex 
perience  in  the  business  showed  one  of  them  to  me 
last  night.  It  was  small  and  faint  and  delicate,  and 
looked  like  the  ghost  of  a  bunch  of  white  smoke  left 
floating  in  the  sky  by  an  exploded  bombshell. 

Wednesday,  April  15.  Mauritius.  Arrived  and 
anchored  off  Port  Louis  2  A.M.  Rugged  clusters  of 
crags  and  peaks,  green  to  their  summits;  from  their 
bases  to  the  sea  a  green  plain  with  just  tilt  enough  to 
it  to  make  the  water  drain  off.  I  believe  it  is  in  56° 
E.  and  22°  S. — a  hot,  tropical  country.  The  green 
plain  has  an  inviting  look;  has  scattering  dwellings 
nestling  among  the  greenery.  Scene  of  the  senti 
mental  adventure  of  Paul  and  Virginia. 

Island  under  French  control — which  means  a  com 
munity  which  depends  upon  quarantines,  not  sanita 
tion,  for  its  health. 

Thursday,  April  16.  Went  ashore  in  the  forenoon 
at  Port  Louis,  a  little  town,  but  with  the  largest 
variety  of  nationalities  and  complexions  we  have 
encountered  yet.  French,  English,  Chinese,  Arabs, 

291 


MARK    TWAIN 

Africans  with  wool,  blacks  with  straight  hair,  East 
Indians,  half-white,  quadroons — and  great  varieties 
in  costumes  and  colors. 

Took  the  train  for  Curepipe  at  one-thirty — two 
hours'  run,  gradually  uphill.  What  a  contrast,  this 
frantic  luxuriance  of  vegetation,  with  the  arid  plains 
of  India;  these  architecturally  picturesque  crags  and 
knobs  and  miniature  mountains,  with  the  monotony 
of  the  Indian  dead-levels. 

A  native  pointed  out  a  handsome  swarthy  man  of 
grave  and  dignified  bearing,  and  said  in  an  awed  tone, 
"That  is  so-and-so;  has  held  office  of  one  sort  or 
another  under  this  government  for  thirty-seven  years 
— he  is  known  all  over  this  whole  island — and  in  the 
other  countries  of  the  world  perhaps — who  knows? 
One  thing  is  certain;  you  can  speak  his  name  any 
where  in  this  whole  island,  and  you  will  find  not  one 
grown  person  that  has  not  heard  it.  It  is  a  wonderful 
thing  to  be  so  celebrated ;  yet  look  at  him ;  it  makes 
no  change  in  him ;  he  does  not  even  seem  to  know  it." 

Curepipe  (means  Pincushion  or  Pegtown,  prob 
ably).  Sixteen  miles  (two  hours)  by  rail  from  Port 
Louis.  At  each  end  of  every  roof  and  on  the  apex 
of  every  dormer  window  a  wooden  peg  two  feet  high 
stands  up;  in  some  cases  its  top  is  blunt,  in  others 
the  peg  is  sharp  and  looks  like  a  toothpick.  The 
passion  for  this  humble  ornament  is  universal. 

Apparently,  there  has  been  only  one  prominent 
event  in  the  history  of  Mauritius,  and  that  one  didn't 
happen.  I  refer  to  the  romantic  sojourn  of  Paul  and 
Virginia  here.  It  was  that  story  that  made  Mau 
ritius  known  to  the  world,  made  the  name  familiar 

292 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

to  everybody,  the  geographical  position   of  it  to 
nobody. 

A  clergyman  was  asked  to  guess  what  was  in  a 
box  on  a  table.  It  was  a  vellum  fan  painted  with 
the  shipwreck,  and  was  "one  of  Virginia's  wedding 

gifts" 

April  18.  This  is  the  only  country  in  the  world 
where  the  stranger  is  not  asked  "How  do  you  like 
this  place?"  This  is  indeed  a  large  distinction. 
Here  the  citizen  does  the  talking  about  the  country 
himself;  the  stranger  is  not  asked  to  help.  You 
get  all  sorts  of  information.  From  one  citizen  you 
gather  the  idea  that  Mauritius  was  made  first,  and 
then  heaven;  and  that  heaven  was  copied  after 
Mauritius.  Another  one  tells  you  that  this  is  an 
exaggeration;  that  the  two  chief  villages,  Port  Louis 
and  Curepipe,  fall  short  of  heavenly  perfection ;  that 
nobody  lives  in  Port  Louis  except  upon  compulsion, 
and  that  Curepipe  is  the  wettest  and  rainiest  place  in 
the  world.  An  English  citizen  said : 

In  the  early  part  of  this  century  Mauritius  was  used  by  the 
French  as  a  basis  from  which  to  operate  against  England's 
Indian  merchantmen;  so  England  captured  the  island  and  also 
the  neighbor,  Bourbon,  to  stop  that  annoyance.  England  gave 
Bourbon  back;  the  government  in  London  did  not  want  any 
more  possessions  "in  the  West  Indies."  If  the  government  had 
had  a  better  quality  of  geography  in  stock  it  would  not  have 
wasted  Bourbon  in  that  foolish  way.  A  big  war  will  tempo 
rarily  shut  up  the  Suez  Canal  some  day,  and  the  English  ships 
will  have  to  go  to  India  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  again; 
then  England  will  have  to  have  Bourbon,  and  will  take  it. 

Mauritius  was  a  Crown  colony  until  twenty  years  ago,  with 
a  Governor  appointed  by  the  Crown  and  assisted  by  a  Council 
appointed  by  himself;  but  Pope  Hennessey  came  out  as  Gover- 

293 


MARK    TWAIN 

nor  then,  and  he  worked  hard  to  get  a  part  of  the  Council  made 
elective,  and  succeeded.  So  now  the  whole  Council  is  French, 
and  in  all  ordinary  matters  of  legislation  they  vote  together 
and  in  the  French  interest,  not  the  English.  The  English 
population  is  very  slender;  it  has  not  votes  enough  to  elect  a 
legislator.  Half  a  dozen  rich  French  families  elect  the  legisla 
ture.  Pope  Hennessey  was  an  Irishman,  a  Catholic,  a  Home 
Ruler,  M.P.,  a  hater  of  England  and  the  English,  a  very  trouble 
some  person  and  a  serious  encumbrance  at  Westminster;  so  it 
was  decided  to  send  him  out  to  govern  unhealthy  countries,  in 
hope  that  something  would  happen  to  him.  But  nothing  did. 
The  first  experiment  was  not  merely  a  failure,  it  was  more  than 
a  failure.  He  proved  to  be  more  of  a  disease  himself  than  any 
he  was  sent  to  encounter.  The  next  experiment  was  here. 
The  dark  scheme  failed  again.  It  was  an  off  season  and  there 
was  nothing  but  measles  here  at  the  time.  Pope  Hennessey's 
health  was  not  affected.  He  worked  with  the  French  and  for 
the  French  and  against  the  English,  and  he  made  the  English 
very  tired  and  the  French  very  happy,  and  lived  to  have  the 
joy  of  seeing  the  flag  he  served  publicly  hissed.  His  memory 
is  held  in  worshipful  reverence  and  affection  by  the  French. 

It  is  a  land  of  extraordinary  quarantine.  They  quarantine  a 
ship  for  anything  or  for  nothing;  quarantine  her  for  twenty,  or 
even  thirty  days.  They  once  quarantined  a  ship  because  her 
captain  had  had  the  smallpox  when  he  was  a  boy.  That  and 
because  he  was  English. 

The  population  is  very  small;  small  to  insignificance.  The 
majority  is  East  Indian;  then  mongrels;  then  negroes  (descend 
ants  of  the  slaves  of  the  French  times);  then  French;  then 
English.  There  was  an  American,  but  he  is  dead  or  mislaid. 
The  mongrels  are  the  result  of  all  kinds  of  mixtures:  black  and 
white,  mulatto  and  white,  quadroon  and  white,  octoroon  and 
white.  And  so  there  is  every  shade  of  complexion;  ebony, 
old  mahogany,  horse-chestnut,  sorrel,  molasses  candy,  clouded 
amber,  clear  amber,  old-ivory  white,  new-ivory  white,  fish-belly 
white — this  latter  the  leprous  complexion  frequent  with  the 
Anglo-Saxon  long  resident  in  tropical  climates. 

You  wouldn't  expect  a  person  to  be  proud  of  being  a  Mauritian, 
now,  would  you?  But  it  is  so.  The  most  of  them  have  never 
been  out  of  the  island,  and  haven't  read  much  or  studied  much, 
and  they  think  the  world  consists  of  three  principal  countries — 

294 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Judaea,  France,  and  Mauritius;  so  they  are  very  proud  of  belong 
ing  to  one  of  the  three  grand  divisions  of  the  globe.  They  think 
that  Russia  and  Germany  are  in  England,  and  that  England 
does  not  amount  to  much.  They  have  heard  vaguely  about  the 
United  States  and  the  equator,  but  think  both  of  them  are 
monarchies.  They  think  Mount  Peter  Botte  is  the  highest 
mountain  in  the  world,  and  if  you  show  one  of  them  a  picture 
of  Milan  Cathedral  he  will  swell  up  with  satisfaction  and  say 
that  the  idea  of  that  jungle  of  spires  was  stolen  from  the  forest 
of  peg-tops  and  toothpicks  that  makes  the  roofs  of  Curepipe 
look  so  fine  and  prickly. 

There  is  not  much  trade  in  books.  The  newspapers  educate 
and  entertain  the  people.  Mainly  the  latter.  They  have  two 
pages  of  large-print  reading-matter — one  of  them  English,  the 
other  French.  The  English  page  is  a  translation  of  the  French 
one.  The  typography  is  super-extra  primitive;  in  this  quality 
it  has  not  its  equal  anywhere.  There  is  no  proof-reader  now; 
he  is  dead. 

Where  do  they  get  matter  to  fill  up  a  page  in  this  little  island 
lost  in  the  wastes  of  the  Indian  Ocean?  Oh,  Madagascar.  They 
discuss  Madagascar  and  France.  That  is  the  bulk.  Then  they 
chock  up  the  rest  with  advice  to  the  government.  Also,  slurs 
upon  the  English  administration.  The  papers  are  all  owned 
and  edited  by  Creoles — French. 

The  language  of  the  country  is  French.  Everybody  speaks 
it — has  to.  You  have  to  know  French — particularly  mongrel 
French,  the  patois  spoken  by  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  of  the 
multiform  complexions — or  you  can't  get  along. 

This  was  a  flourishing  country  in  former  days,  for  it  made 
then  and  still  makes  the  best  sugar  in  the  world;  but  first  the 
Suez  Canal  severed  it  from  the  world  and  left  it  out  in  the  cold, 
and  next  the  beet-root  sugar,  helped  by  bounties,  captured  the 
European  markets.  Sugar  is  the  life  of  Mauritius,  and  it  is 
losing  its  grip.  Its  downward  course  was  checked  by  the  depre 
ciation  of  the  rupee — for  the  planter  pays  wages  in  rupees  but 
sells  his  crop  for  gold — and  the  insurrection  in  Cuba  and  paraly- 
zation  of  the  sugar  industry  there  have  given  our  prices  here  a 
life-saving  lift;  but  the  outlook  has  nothing  permanently  favor 
able  about  it.  It  takes  a  year  to  mature  the  canes — on  the 
high  ground  three  and  six  months  longer — and  there  is  always 
a  chance  that  the  annual  cyclone  will  rip  the  profit  out  of  the 

295 


MARK     TWAIN 

crop.  In  recent  times  a  cyclone  took  the  whole  crop,  as  you 
may  say;  and  the  island  never  saw  a  finer  one.  Some  of  the 
noblest  sugar  estates  on  the  island  are  in  deep  difficulties.  A 
dozen  of  them  are  investments  of  English  capital;  and  the 
companies  that  own  them  are  at  work  now,  trying  to  settle  up 
and  get  out  with  a  saving  of  half  the  money  they  put  in.  You 
know,  in  these  days,  when  a  country  begins  to  introduce  the  tea 
culture,  it  means  that  its  own  specialty  has  gone  back  on  it. 
Look  at  Bengal;  look  at  Ceylon.  Well,  they've  begun  to  intro 
duce  the  tea  culture  here. 

Many  copies  of  Paul  and  Virginia  are  sold  every  year  in  Mauri 
tius.  No  other  book  is  so  popular  here  except  the  Bible.  By 
many  it  is  supposed  to  be  a  part  of  the  Bible.  All  the  mission 
aries  work  up  their  French  on  it  when  they  come  here  to  pervert 
the  Catholic  mongrel.  It  is  the  greatest  story  that  was  ever 
written  about  Mauritius,  and  the  only  one. 


296 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

WHERE  MATCHES   WILL  NOT  LIGHT 

The  principal  difference  between  a  cat  and  a  lie  is  that  the  cat  has  only  nine 
lives.  —  Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar, 


20.  —  The  cyclone  of  1892  killed  and  crip- 
pled  hundreds  of  people;  it  was  accompanied 
by  a  deluge  of  rain,  which  drowned  Port  Louis  and 
produced  a  water  famine.  Quite  true;  for  it  burst 
the  reservoir  and  the  water-pipes;  and  for  a  time 
after  the  flood  had  disappeared  there  was  much  dis 
tress  from  want  of  water. 

This  is  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  no  breed 
of  matches  can  stand  the  damp.  Only  one  match 
in  sixteen  will  light. 

The  roads  are  hard  and  smooth;  some  of  the 
compounds  are  spacious,  some  of  the  bungalows 
commodious,  and  the  roadways  are  walled  by  tall 
bamboo  hedges,  trim  and  green  and  beautiful;  and 
there  are  azalea  hedges,  too,  both  the  white  and  the 
red;  I  never  saw  that  before. 

As  to  healthiness  :  I  translate  from  to-day's  (April 
20)  Merchants1  and  Planters1  Gazette,  from  the  article 
of  a  regular  contributor,  "Carminge,"  concerning  the 
death  of  the  nephew  of  a  prominent  citizen: 

Sad  and  lugubrious  existence,  this  which  we  lead  in  Mauritius; 
I  believe  there  is  no  other  country  in  the  world  where  one  dies 
more  easily  than  among  us.  The  least  indisposition  becomes  a 

297 


MARK    TWAIN 

mortal  malady;  a  simple  headache  develops  into  meningitis; 
a  cold  into  pneumonia,  and  presently,  when  we  are  least  expecting 
it,  death  is  a  guest  in  our  home. 

This  daily  paper  has  a  meteorological  report  which 
tells  you  what  the  weather  was  day  before  yesterday. 

One  is  never  pestered  by  a  beggar  or  a  peddler  in 
this  town,  so  far  as  I  can  see.  This  is  pleasantly 
different  from  India. 

April  22.  To  such  as  believe  that  the  quaint 
product  called  French  civilization  would  be  an  im 
provement  upon  the  civilization  of  New  Guinea  and 
the  like,  the  snatching  of  Madagascar  and  the  laying 
on  of  French  civilization  there  will  be  fully  justified. 
But  why  did  the  English  allow  the  French  to  have 
Madagascar?  Did  she  respect  a  theft  of  a  couple  of 
centuries  ago?  Dear  me,  robbery  by  European 
nations  of  each  other's  territories  has  never  been  a 
sin,  is  not  a  sin  to-day.  To  the  several  cabinets  the 
several  political  establishments  of  the  world  are 
clothes-lines;  and  a  large  part  of  the  official  duty  of 
these  cabinets  is  to  keep  an  eye  on  each  other's 
wash  and  grab  what  they  can  of  it  as  opportunity 
offers.  All  the  territorial  possessions  of  all  the  polit 
ical  establishments  in  the  earth — including  America, 
of  course — consist  of  pilferings  from  other  people's 
wash.  No  tribe,  howsoever  insignificant,  and  no 
nation,  howsoever  mighty,  occupies  a  foot  of  land 
that  was  not  stolen.  When  the  English,  the  French, 
and  the  Spaniards  reached  America,  the  Indian 
tribes  had  been  raiding  each  other's  territorial  clothes 
lines  for  ages,  and  every  acre  of  ground  in  the 
continent  had  been  stolen  and  restolen  five  hundred 

298 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

times.  The  English,  the  French,  and  the  Spaniards 
went  to  work  and  stole  it  all  over  again;  and  when 
that  was  satisfactorily  accomplished  they  went  dili 
gently  to  work  and  stole  it  from  each  other.  In  Europe 
and  Asia  and  Sirica  every  acre  of  ground  has  been 
stolen  several  millions  of  times.  A  crime  persevered 
in  a  thousand  centuries  ceases  to  be  a  crime,  and 
becomes  a  virtue.  This  is  the  law  of  custom,  and 
custom  supersedes  all  other  forms  of  law.  Christian 
governments  are  as  frank  to-day,  as  open  and  above- 
board,  in  discussing  projects  for  raiding  each  other's 
clothes-lines  as  ever  they  were  before  the  Golden 
Rule  came  smiling  into  this  inhospitable  world  and 
couldn't  get  a  night's  lodging  anywhere.  In  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  England  has  beneficently 
retired  garment  after  garment  from  the  Indian  lines, 
until  there  is  hardly  a  rag  of  the  original  wash  left 
dangling  anywhere.  In  eight  hundred  years  an  ob 
scure  tribe  of  Muscovite  savages  has  risen  to  the 
dazzling  position  of  Land-Robber-in-Chief ;  she  found 
a  quarter  of  the  world  hanging  out  to  dry  on  a 
hundred  parallels  of  latitude,  and  she  scooped  in 
the  whole  wash.  She  keeps  a  sharp  eye  on  a  mul 
titude  of  little  lines  that  stretch  along  the  north 
ern  boundaries  of  India,  and  every  now  and  then 
she  snatches  a  hip-rag  or  a  pair  of  pajamas.  It  is 
England's  prospective  property,  and  Russia  knows 
it;  but  Russia  cares  nothing  for  that.  In  fact,  in 
our  day,  land-robbery,  claim-jumping,  is  become  a 
European  governmental  frenzy.  Some  have  been 
hard  at  it  in  the  borders  of  China,  in  Burma,  in 
Siam,  and  the  islands  of  the  sea;  and  all  have  been 

299 


MARK     TWAIN 

at  it  in  Africa.  Africa  has  been  as  coolly  divided 
up  and  portioned  out  among  the  gang  as  if  they 
had  bought  it  and  paid  for  it.  And  now  straight 
way  they  are  beginning  the  old  game  again — to  steal 
each  other's  grabbings.  Germany  found  a  vast  slice 
of  Central  Africa  with  the  English  flag  and  the 
English  missionary  and  the  English  trader  scattered 
all  over  it,  but  with  certain  formalities  neglected — 
no  signs  up,  "Keep  off  the  grass,"  "Trespassers  for 
bidden,"  etc. — and  she  stepped  in  with  a  cold  calm 
smile  and  put  up  the  signs  herself,  and  swept  those 
English  pioneers  promptly  out  of  the  country. 

There  is  a  tremendous  point  there.  It  can  be  put 
into  the  form  of  a  maxim :  Get  your  formalities  right 
— never  mind  about  the  moralities. 

It  was  an  impudent  thing;  but  England  had  to 
put  up  with  it.  Now,  in  the  case  of  Madagascar, 
the  formalities  had  originally  been  observed,  but  by 
neglect  they  had  fallen  into  desuetude  ages  ago. 
England  should  have  snatched  Madagascar  from  the 
French  clothes-line.  Without  an  effort  she  could 
have  saved  those  harmless  natives  from  the  calamity 
of  French  civilization,  and  she  did  not  do  it.  Now 
it  is  too  late. 

The  signs  of  the  times  show  plainly  enough  what 
is  going  to  happen.  All  the  savage  lands  in  the 
world  are  going  to  be  brought  under  subjection  to  the 
Christian  governments  of  Europe.  I  am  not  sorry, 
but  glad.  This  coming  fate  might  have  been  a 
calamity  to  those  savage  peoples  two  hundred  years 
ago;  but  now  it  will  in  some  cases  be  a  benefaction. 
The  sooner  the  seizure  is  consummated,  the  better 

300 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

for  the  savages.  The  dreary  and  dragging  ages  of 
bloodshed  and  disorder  and  oppression  will  give  place 
to  peace  and  order  and  the  reign  of  law.  When 
one  considers  what  India  was  under  her  Hindu  and 
Mohammedan  rulers,  and  what  she  is  now;  when 
he  remembers  the  miseries  of  her  millions  then  and 
the  protections  and  humanities  which  they  enjoy 
now,  he  must  concede  that  the  most  fortunate  thing 
that  has  ever  befallen  that  empire  was  the  establish 
ment  of  British  supremacy  there.  The  savage  lands 
of  the  world  are  to  pass  to  alien  possession,  their 
peoples  to  the  mercies  of  alien  rulers.  Let  us  hope 
and  believe  that  they  will  all  benefit  by  the  change. 

April  23.  "The  first  year  they  gather  shells; 
the  second  year  they  gather  shells  and  drink;  the 
third  year  they  do  not  gather  shells/'  (Said  of  im 
migrants  to  Mauritius.) 

Population  375,000.  One  hundred  and  twenty 
sugar  factories. 

Population  1851,  185,000.  The  increase  is  due 
mainly  to  the  introduction  of  Indian  coolies.  They 
now  apparently  form  the  great  majority  of  the 
population.  They  are  admirable  breeders;  their 
homes  are  always  hazy  with  children.  Great  savers 
of  money.  A  British  officer  told  me  that  in  India 
he  paid  his  servant  ten  rupees  a  month,  and  he  had 
eleven  cousins,  uncles,  parents,  etc.,  dependent  upon 
him,  and  he  supported  them  on  his  wages.  These 
thrifty  coolies  are  said  to  be  acquiring  land  a  trifle 
at  a  time,  and  cultivating  it;  and  may  own  the 
island  by  and  by. 

The  Indian  women  do  very  hard  labor  for  wages 
301 


MARK    TWAIN 

running  from  forty  one-hundredths  of  a  rupee  for 
twelve  hours'  work,  to  fifty  one-hundredths.  They 
carry  mats  of  sugar  on  their  heads  (seventy  pounds) 
all  day  lading  ships,  for  half  a  rupee,  and  work  at 
gardening  all  day  for  less. 

The  camaron  is  a  fresh-water  creature  like  a  cray 
fish.  It  is  regarded  here  as  the  world's  chiefest 
delicacy — and  certainly  it  is  good.  Guards  patrol 
the  streams  to  prevent  poaching  it.  A  fine  of  Rs. 
200  or  300  (they  say)  for  poaching.  Bait  is  thrown 
in  the  water;  the  camaron  goes  for  it;  the  fisher 
drops  his  loop  in  and  works  it  around  and  about  the 
camaron  he  has  selected,  till  he  gets  it  over  its  tail; 
then  there's  a  jerk  or  something  to  certify  the 
camaron  that  it  is  his  turn  now;  he  suddenly  backs 
away,  which  moves  the  loop  still  further  up  his 
person  and  draws  it  taut,  and  his  days  are  ended. 

Another  dish,  called  palmiste,  is  like  raw  turnip- 
shavings  and  tastes  like  green  almonds;  is  very  deli 
cate  and  good.  Costs  the  life  of  a  palm  tree  twelve 
to  twenty  years  old — for  it  is  the  pith. 

Another  dish — looks  like  greens  or  a  tangle  of 
fine  seaweed — is  a  preparation  of  the  deadly  night 
shade.  Good  enough. 

The  monkeys  live  in  the  dense  forests  on  the 
flanks  of  the  toy  mountains,  and  they  flock  down 
nights  and  raid  the  sugar-fields.  Also  on  other 
estates  they  come  down  and  destroy  a  sort  of  bean- 
crop — just  for  fun,  apparently — tear  off  the  pods 
and  throw  them  down. 

The  cyclone  of  1892  tore  down  two  great  blocks 
of  stone  buildings  in  the  center  of  Port  Louis — the 

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FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

chief  architectural  feature — and  left  the  uncomely 
and  apparently  frail  blocks  standing.  Everywhere 
in  its  track  it  annihilated  houses,  tore  off  roofs, 
destroyed  trees  and  crops.  The  men  were  in  the 
towns,  the  women  and  children  at  home  in  the  coun 
try  getting  crippled,  killed,  frightened  to  insanity; 
and  the  rain  deluging  them,  the  wind  howling,  the 
thunder  crashing,  the  lightning  glaring.  This  for 
an  hour  or  so.  Then  a  lull  and  sunshine;  many 
ventured  out  of  safe  shelter;  then  suddenly  here  it 
came  again  from  the  opposite  point  and  renewed 
and  completed  the  devastation.  It  is  said  the  Chinese 
fed  the  sufferers  for  days  on  free  rice. 

Whole  streets  in  Port  Louis  were  laid  flat- 
wrecked.  During  a  minute  and  a  half  the  wind 
blew  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  miles  an  hour; 
no  official  record  made  after  that,  when  it  may  have 
reached  one  hundred  and  fifty.  It  cut  down  an 
obelisk.  It  carried  an  American  ship  into  the  woods 
after  breaking  the  chains  of  two  anchors.  They 
now  use  four — two  forward,  two  astern.  Common 
report  says  it  killed  twelve  hundred  in  Port  Louis 
alone,  in  half  an  hour.  Then  came  the  lull  of  the 
central  calm — people  did  not  know  the  barometer 
was  still  going  down — then  suddenly  all  perdition 
broke  loose  again  while  people  were  rushing  around 
seeking  friends  and  rescuing  the  wounded.  The 
noise  was  comparable  to  nothing;  there  is  nothing 
resembling  it  but  thunder  and  cannon,  and  these  are 
feeble  in  comparison. 

What  there  is  of  Mauritius  is  beautiful.  You  have 
undulating  wide  expanses  of  sugar-cane — a  fine, 

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MARK    TWAIN 

fresh  green  and  very  pleasant  to  the  eye;  and  every 
where  else  you  have  a  ragged  luxuriance  of  tropic 
vegetation  of  vivid  greens  of  varying  shades,  a  wild 
tangle  of  underbrush,  with  graceful  tall  palms  lifting 
their  crippled  plumes  high  above  it;  and  you  have 
stretches  of  shady  dense  forest  with  limpid  streams 
frolicking  through  them,  continually  glimpsed  and 
lost  and  glimpsed  again  in  the  pleasantest  hide-and- 
seek  fashion;  and  you  have  some  tiny  mountains, 
some  quaint  and  picturesque  groups  of  toy  peaks,  and 
a  dainty  little  vest-pocket  Matterhorn ;  and  here  and 
there  and  now  and  then  a  strip  of  sea  with  a  white 
ruffle  of  surf  breaks  into  the  view. 

That  is  Mauritius;  and  pretty  enough.  The  de 
tails  are  few,  the  massed  result  is  charming,  but 
not  imposing;  not  riotous,  not  exciting;  it  is  a  Sun 
day  landscape.  Perspective,  and  the  enchantments 
wrought  by  distance,  are  wanting.  There  are  no 
distances;  there  is  no  perspective,  so  to  speak. 
Fifteen  miles  as  the  crow  flies  is  the  usual  limit  of 
vision.  Mauritius  is  a  garden  and  a  park  combined. 
It  affects  one's  emotions  as  parks  and  gardens  affect 
them.  The  surfaces  of  one's  spiritual  deeps  are 
pleasantly  played  upon,  the  deeps  themselves  are 
not  reached,  not  stirred.  Spaciousness,  remote  alti 
tudes,  the  sense  of  mystery  which  haunts  apparently 
inaccessible  mountain  domes  and  summits  reposing 
in  the  sky — these  are  the  things  which  exalt  the 
spirit  and  move  it  to  see  visions  and  dream  dreams. 

The  Sandwich  Islands  remain  my  ideal  of  the 
perfect  thing  in  the  matter  of  tropical  islands.  I 
would  add  another  story  to  Mauna  Loa's  sixteen 

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FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

thousand  feet  if  I  could,  and  make  it  particularly 
bold  and  steep  and  craggy  and  forbidding  and  snowy ; 
and  I  would  make  the  volcano  spout  its  lava-floods 
out  of  its  summit  instead  of  its  sides ;  but  aside  from 
these  non-essentials  I  have  no  corrections  to  suggest. 
I  hope  these  will  be  attended  to;  I  do  not  wish  to 
have  to  speak  of  it  again. 


305 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

WHAT  BARNUM  DID  FOR  SHAKESPEARE 

When  your  watch  gets  out  of  order  you  have  choice  of  two  things  to  do :  throw 
it  in  the  fire  or  take  it  to  the  watch-tinker.  The  former  is  the  quickest. 

— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  Arundel  Castle  is  the  finest  boat  I  have  seen 
in  these  seas.  She  is  thoroughly  modern,  and 
that  statement  covers  a  great  deal  of  ground.  She 
has  the  usual  defect,  the  common  defect,  the  uni 
versal  defect,  the  defect  that  has  never  been  missing 
from  any  ship  that  ever  sailed — she  has  imperfect 
beds.  Many  ships  have  good  beds,  but  no  ship 
has  very  good  ones.  In  the  matter  of  beds  all  ships 
have  been  badly  edited,  ignorantly  edited,  from  the 
beginning.  The  selection  of  the  beds  is  given  to 
some  hearty,  strong-backed,  self-made  man,  when 
it  ought  to  be  given  to  a  frail  woman  accustomed 
from  girlhood  to  backaches  and  insomnia.  Nothing 
is  so  rare,  on  either  side  of  the  ocean,  as  a  perfect 
bed;  nothing  is  so  difficult  to  make.  Some  of  the 
hotels  on  both  sides  provide  it,  but  no  ship  ever 
does  or  ever  did.  In  Noah's  Ark  the  beds  were 
simply  scandalous.  Noah  set  the  fashion,  and  it 
will  endure  in  one  degree  of  modification  or  another 
till  the  next  flood. 

8  AM.  Passing  Isle  de  Bourbon.  Broken -up 
sky-line  of  volcanic  mountains  in  the  middle.  Surely 
it  would  not  cost  much  to  repair  them,  and  it  seems 
inexcusable  neglect  to  leave  them  as  they  are. 

306 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

It  seems  stupid  to  send  tired  men  to  Europe  to 
rest.  It  is  no  proper  rest  for  the  mind  to  clatter 
from  town  to  town  in  the  dust  and  cinders,  and 
examine  galleries  and  architecture,  and  be  always 
meeting  people  and  lunching  and  teaing  and  dining, 
and  receiving  worrying  cables  and  letters.  And  a 
sea-voyage  on  the  Atlantic  is  of  no  use — voyage 
too  short,  sea  too  rough.  The  peaceful  Indian  and 
Pacific  Oceans  and  the  long  stretches  of  time  are 
the  healing  thing. 

May  2,  A.M.  A  fair,  great  ship  in  sight,  almost 
the  first  we  have  seen  in  these  weeks  of  lonely  voy 
aging.  We  are  now  in  the  Mozambique  Channel, 
between  Madagascar  and  South  Africa,  sailing 
straight  west  for  Delagoa  Bay. 

Last  night,  the  burly  chief  engineer,  middle-aged, 
was  standing  telling  a  spirited  seafaring  tale,  and 
had  reached  the  most  exciting  place,  where  a  man 
overboard  was  washing  swiftly  astern  on  the  great 
seas,  and  uplifting  despairing  cries,  everybody  racing 
aft  in  a  frenzy  of  excitement  and  fading  hope,  when 
the  band,  which  had  been  silent  a  moment,  began 
impressively  its  closing  piece,  the  English  national 
anthem.  As  simply  as  if  he  was  unconscious  of  what 
he  was  doing,  he  stopped  his  story,  uncovered,  laid 
his  laced  cap  against  his  breast,  and  slightly  bent 
his  grizzled  head.  The  few  bars  finished,  he  put 
on  his  cap  and  took  up  his  tale  again  as  naturally 
as  if  that  interjection  of  music  had  been  a  part  of  it. 
There  was  something  touching  and  fine  about  it, 
and  it  was  moving  to  reflect  that  he  was  one  of  a 
myriad,  scattered  over  every  part  of  the  globe,  who 

307 


MARK    TWAIN 

by  turn  were  doing  as  he  was  doing  every  hour  of 
the  twenty-four — those  awake  doing  it  while  the 
others  slept — those  impressive  bars  forever  floating 
up  out  of  the  various  climes,  never  silent  and  never 
lacking  reverent  listeners.  . 

All  that  I  remember  about  Madagascar  is  that 
Thackeray's  little  Billee  went  up  to  the  top  of  the 
mast  and  there  knelt  him  upon  his  knee,  saying, 
"I  see 

"Jerusalem  and  Madagascar, 
And  North  and  South  Amerikee." 

May  j.  Sunday.  Fifteen  or  twenty  Africanders 
who  will  end  their  voyage  to-day  and  strike  for  their 
several  homes  from  Delagoa  Bay  to-morrow,  sat  up 
singing  on  the  after-deck  in  the  moonlight  till  3  A.M. 
Good  fun  and  wholesome.  And  the  songs  were 
clean  songs,  and  some  of  them  were  hallowed  by 
tender  associations.  Finally,  in  a  pause,  a  man 
asked,  "Have  you  heard  about  the  fellow  that  kept 
a  diary  crossing  the  Atlantic?"  It  was  a  discord,  a 
wet  blanket.  The  men  were  not  in  the  mood  for 
humorous  dirt.  The  songs  had  carried  them  to  their 
homes,  and  in  spirit  they  sat  by  those  far  hearth 
stones,  and  saw  faces  and  heard  voices  other  than 
those  that  were  about  them.  And  so  this  disposition 
to  drag  in  an  old  indecent  anecdote  got  no  welcome ; 
nobody  answered.  The  poor  man  hadn't  wit  enough 
to  see  that  he  had  blundered,  but  asked  his  question 
again.  Again  there  was  no  response.  It  was  em 
barrassing  for  him.  In  his  confusion  he  chose  the 
wrong  course,  did  the  wrong  thing — began  the 

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

anecdote.  Began  it  in  a  deep  and  hostile  stillness, 
where  had  been  such  life  and  stir  and  warm  com 
radeship  before.  He  delivered  himself  of  the  brief 
details  of  the  diary's  first  day,  and  did  it  with  some 
confidence  and  a  fair  degree  of  eagerness.  It  fell 
flat.  There  was  an  awkward  pause.  The  two  rows 
of  men  sat  like  statues.  There  was  no  movement, 
no  sound.  He  had  to  go  on;  there  was  no  other 
way,  at  least  none  that  an  animal  of  his  caliber 
could  think  of.  At  the  close  of  each  day's  diary 
the  same  dismal  silence  followed.  When  at  last  he 
finished  his  tale  and  sprung  the  indelicate  surprise 
which  is  wont  to  fetch  a  crash  of  laughter,  not  a 
ripple  of  sound  resulted.  It  was  as  if  the  tale  had 
been  told  to  dead  men.  After  what  seemed  a  long, 
long  time,  somebody  sighed,  somebody  else  stirred 
in  his  seat ;  presently,  the  men  dropped  into  a  low 
murmur  of  confidential  talk,  each  with  his  neighbor, 
and  the  incident  was  closed.  There  were  indications 
that  that  man  was  fond  of  his  anecdote ;  that  it  was 
his  pet,  his  standby,  his  shot  that  never  missed,  his 
reputation-maker.  But  he  will  never  tell  it  again. 
No  doubt  he  will  think  of  it  sometimes,  for  that 
cannot  well  be  helped;  and  then  he  will  see  a  pic 
ture,  and  always  the  same  picture — the  double  rank 
of  dead  men;  the  vacant  deck  stretching  away 
in  dimming  perspective  beyond  them,  the  wide 
desert  of  smooth  sea  all  abroad;  the  rim  of  the 
moon  spying  from  behind  a  rag  of  black  cloud;  the 
remote  top  of  the  mizzenmast  shearing  a  zigzag  path 
through  the  fields  of  stars  in  the  deeps  of  space; 
and  this  soft  picture  will  remind  him  of  the  time 

309 


MARK     TWAIN 

that  he  sat  in  the  midst  of  it  and  told  his  poor  little 
tale  and  felt  so  lonesome  when  he  got  through. 

Fifty  Indians  and  Chinamen  asleep  in  a  big  tent 
in  the  waist  of  the  ship  forward;  they  lie  side  by 
side  with  no  space  between;  the  former  wrapped 
up,  head  and  all,  as  in  the  Indian  streets,  the  China 
men  uncovered;  the  lamp  and  things  for  opium- 
smoking  in  the  center. 

A  passenger  said  it  was  ten  two-ton  truck-loads 
of  dynamite  that  lately  exploded  at  Johannesburg. 
Hundreds  killed;  he  doesn't  know  how  many; 
limbs  picked  up  for  miles  around.  Glass  shattered, 
and  roofs  swept  away  or  collapsed  two  hundred 
yards  off;  fragment  of  iron  flung  three  and  a  half 
miles. 

It  occurred  at  3  P.M.;  at  6,  £65,000  had  been 
subscribed.  When  this  passenger  left,  £35,000  had 
been  voted  by  city  and  state  governments  and 
£100,000  by  citizens  and  business  corporations. 
When  news  of  the  disaster  was  telephoned  to  the 
Exchange  £35,000  were  subscribed  in  the  first  five 
minutes.  Subscribing  was  still  going  on  when  he 
left;  the  papers  had  omitted  the  names,  only  the 
amounts — too  many  names;  not  enough  room. 
£100,000  subscribed  by  companies  and  citizens;  if 
this  is  true,  it  must  be  what  they  call  in  Australia 
"a  record" — the  biggest  instance  of  a  spontaneous 
outpour  for  charity  in  history,  considering  the  size 
of  the  population  it  was  drawn  from,  $8  or  $10  for 
each  white  resident,  babies  at  the  breast  included. 

Monday,  May  4.  Steaming  slowly  in  the  stupen 
dous  Delagoa  Bay,  its  dim  arms  stretching  far  away 

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

and  disappearing  on  both  sides.  It  could  furnish 
plenty  of  room  for  all  the  ships  in  the  world,  but  it 
is  shoal.  The  lead  has  given  us  three  and  a  half 
fathoms  several  times,  and  we  are  drawing  that, 
lacking  six  inches. 

A  bold  headland — precipitous  wall,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  high,  very  strong,  red  color,  stretching 
a  mile  or  so.  A  man  said  it  was  Portuguese  blood — 
battle  fought  here  with  the  natives  last  year.  I  think 
this  doubtful.  Pretty  cluster  of  houses  on  the  table 
land  above  the  red — and  rolling  stretches  of  grass  and 
groups  of  trees,  like  England. 

The  Portuguese  have  the  railroad  (one  passenger- 
train  a  day)  to  the  border — seventy  miles — then  the 
Netherlands  Company  have  it.  Thousands  of  tons 
of  freight  on  the  shore — no  cover.  This  is  Portuguese 
all  over — indolence,  piousness,  poverty,  impotence. 

Crews  of  small  boats  and  tugs,  all  jet-black  woolly 
heads  and  very  muscular. 

Winter.  The  South  African  winter  is  just  begin 
ning  now,  but  nobody  but  an  expert  can  tell  it  from 
summer.  However,  I  am  tired  of  summer;  we 
have  had  it  unbroken  for  eleven  months.  We  spent 
the  afternoon  on  shore,  Delagoa  Bay.  A  small 
town — no  sights.  No  carriages.  Three  'rikishas, 
but  we  couldn't  get  them — apparently  private. 
These  Portuguese  are  a  rich  brown,  like  some  of 
the  Indians.  Some  of  the  blacks  have  the  long 
horse-heads  and  very  long  chins  of  the  negroes  of 
the  picture-books;  but  most  of  them  are  exactly 
like  the  negroes  of  our  Southern  states — round  faces, 
flat  noses,  good-natured,  and  easy  laughers. 


MARK     TWAIN 

Flocks  of  black  women  passed  along,  carrying 
outrageously  heavy  bags  of  freight  on  their  heads — 
the  quiver  of  their  leg  as  the  foot  was  planted  and 
the  strain  exhibited  by  their  bodies  showed  what  a 
tax  upon  their  strength  the  load  was.  They  were 
stevedores,  and  doing  full  stevedore's  work.  They 
were  very  erect  when  unladen — from  carrying 
weights  on  their  heads — just  like  the  Indian  women. 
It  gives  them  a  proud,  fine  carriage. 

Sometimes  one  saw  a  woman  carrying  on  her  head 
a  laden  and  top-heavy  basket  the  shape  of  an  inverted 
pyramid — its  top  the  size  of  a  soup-plate,  its  base 
the  diameter  of  a  teacup.  It  required  nice  balancing 
— and  got  it. 

No  bright  colors;  yet  there  were  a  good  many 
Hindus. 

The  Second  Class  Passenger  came  over  as  usual 
at  "lights  out"  (eleven)  and  we  lounged  along  the 
spacious  vague  solitudes  of  the  deck  and  smoked  the 
peaceful  pipe  and  talked.  He  told  me  an  incident 
in  Mr.  Barnum's  life  which  was  evidently  character 
istic  of  that  great  showman  in  several  ways: 

This  was  Barnum's  purchase  of  Shakespeare's 
birthplace,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  Second 
Class  Passenger  was  in  Jamrach's  employ  at  the  time 
and  knew  Barnum  well.  He  said  the  thing  began  in 
this  way.  One  morning  Barnum  and  Jamrach  were 
in  Jamrach's  little  private  snuggery  back  of  the 
wilderness  of  caged  monkeys  and  snakes  and  other 
commonplaces  of  Jamrach's  stock  in  trade,  refreshing 
themselves  after  an  arduous  stroke  of  business, 
Jamrach  with  something  orthodox,  Barnum  with 

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FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

something  heterodox — for  Barnum  was  a  teetotaler. 
The  stroke  of  business  was  in  the  elephant  line. 
Jamrach  had  contracted  to  deliver  to  Barnum  in 
New  York  eighteen  elephants  for  three  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  dollars  in  time  for  the  next 
season's  opening.  Then  it  occurred  to  Mr.  Barnum 
that  he  needed  a  "card."  He  suggested  Jumbo. 
Jamrach  said  he  would  have  to  think  of  some 
thing  else — Jumbo  couldn't  be  had ;  the  Zoo  wouldn't 
part  with  that  elephant.  Barnum  said  he  was 
willing  to  pay  a  fortune  for  Jumbo  if  he  could  get 
him.  Jamrach  said  it  was  no  use  to  think  about 
it ;  that  Jumbo  was  as  popular  as  the  Prince  of  Wales 
and  the  Zoo  wouldn't  dare  to  sell  him;  all  England 
would  be  outraged  at  the  idea;  Jumbo  was  an  Eng 
lish  institution;  he  was  part  of  the  national  glory; 
one  might  as  well  think  of  buying  the  Nelson 
monument.  Barnum  spoke  up  with  vivacity  and 
said: 

"It's  a  first-rate  idea.     Til  buy  the  monument.1' 

Jamrach  was  speechless  for  a  second.  Then  he 
said,  like  one  ashamed: 

"You  caught  me.  I  was  napping.  For  a  moment 
I  thought  you  were  in  earnest." 

Barnum  said  pleasantly : 

"I  was  in  earnest.  I  know  they  won't  sell  it, 
but  no  matter,  I  will  not  throw  away  a  good  idea  for 
all  that.  All  I  want  is  a  big  advertisement.  I  will 
keep  the  thing  in  mind,  and  if  nothing  better  turns 
up  I  will  offer  to  buy  it.  That  will  answer  every 
purpose.  It  will  furnish  me  a  couple  of  columns  of 
gratis  advertising  in  every  English  and  American 

313 


MARK    TWAIN 

paper  for  a  couple  of  months,  and  give  my  show 
the  biggest  boom  a  show  ever  had  in  this  world. " 

Jamrach  started  to  deliver  a  burst  of  admiration, 
but  was  interrupted  by  Barnum,  who  said: 

"Here  is  a  state  of  things!  England  ought  to 
blush." 

His  eye  had  fallen  upon  something  in  the  news 
paper.  He  read  it  through  to  himself,  then  read  it 
aloud.  It  said  that  the  house  that  Shakespeare  was 
born  in  at  Stratford-on-Avon  was  falling  gradually 
to  ruin  through  neglect;  that  the  room  where  the 
poet  first  saw  the  light  was  now  serving  as  a  butcher's 
shop;  that  all  appeals  to  England  to  contribute 
money  (the  requisite  sum  stated)  to  buy  and  repair 
the  house  and  place  it  in  the  care  of  salaried  and 
trustworthy  keepers  had  fallen  resultless.  Then 
Barnum  said : 

"There's  my  chance.  Let  Jumbo  and  the  Monu 
ment  alone  for  the  present — they'll  keep.  I'll  buy 
Shakespeare's  house.  I'll  set  it  up  in  my  Museum 
in  New  York  and  put  a  glass  case  around  it  and 
make  a  sacred  thing  of  it ;  and  you'll  see  all  America 
flock  there  to  worship;  yes,  and  pilgrims  from  the 
whole  earth;  and  I'll  make  them  take  their  hats  off, 
too.  In  America  we  know  how  to  value  anything 
that  Shakespeare's  touch  has  made  holy.  You'll  see. ' ' 

In  conclusion  the  S.  C.  P.  said: 

"That  is  the  way  the  thing  came  about.  Barnum 
did  buy  Shakespeare's  house.  He  paid  the  price 
asked,  and  received  the  properly  attested  documents 
of  sale.  Then  there  was  an  explosion.  I  can  tell 
you.  England  rose!  What,  the  birthplace  of  the 

3H 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

master-genius  of  all  the  ages  and  all  the  climes — 
that  priceless  possession  of  Britain — to  be  carted 
out  of  the  country  like  so  much  old  lumber  and  set 
up  for  sixpenny  desecration  in  a  Yankee  show-shop 
— the  idea  was  not  to  be  tolerated  for  a  moment. 
England  rose  in  her  indignation,  and  Barnum  was 
glad  to  relinquish  his  prize  and  offer  apologies. 
However,  he  stood  out  for  a  compromise;  he  claimed 
a  concession — England  must  let  him  have  Jumbo. 
And  England  consented,  but  not  cheerfully." 

It  shows  how,  by  help  of  time,  a  story  can  grow 
— even  after  Barnum  has  had  the  first  innings  in  the 
telling  of  it.  Mr.  Barnum  told  me  the  story  himself, 
years  ago.  He  said  that  the  permission  to  buy 
Jumbo  was  not  a  concession;  the  purchase  was 
made  and  the  animal  delivered  before  the  public 
knew  anything  about  it.  Also,  that  the  securing  of 
Jumbo  was  all  the  advertisement  he  needed.  It 
produced  many  columns  of  newspaper  talk,  free  of 
cost,  and  he  was  satisfied.  He  said  that  if  he  had 
failed  to  get  Jumbo  he  would  have  caused  his  notion 
of  buying  the  Nelson  Monument  to  be  treacherously 
smuggled  into  print  by  some  trusty  friend,  and  after 
he  had  gotten  a  few  hundred  pages  of  gratuitous 
advertising  out  of  it,  he  would  have  come  out  with  a 
blundering,  obtuse,  but  warm-hearted  letter  of  apol 
ogy,  and  in  a  postscript  to  it  would  have  naively 
proposed  to  let  the  Monument  go,  and  take  Stone- 
henge  in  place  of  it  at  the  same  price. 

It  was  his  opinion  that  such  a  letter,  written  with 
well-simulated  asinine  innocence  and  gush,  would 
have  gotten  his  ignorance  and  stupidity  an  amount 


MARK     TWAIN 

of  newspaper  abuse  worth  six  fortunes  to  him,  and 
not  purchasable  for  twice  the  money. 

I  knew  Mr.  Barnum  well,  and  I  placed  every  con 
fidence  in  the  account  which  he  gave  me  of  the 
Shakespeare-birthplace  episode.  He  said  he  found 
the  house  neglected  and  going  to  decay,  and  he 
inquired  into  the  matter  and  was  told  that  many 
times  earnest  efforts  had  been  made  to  raise  money 
for  its  proper  repair  and  preservation,  but  without 
success.  He  then  proposed  to  buy  it.  The  propo 
sition  was  entertained,  and  a  price  named — fifty 
thousand  dollars,  I  think;  but  whatever  it  was,  Bar 
num  paid  the  money  down,  without  remark,  and  the 
papers  were  drawn  up  and  executed.  He  said  that 
it  had  been  his  purpose  to  set  up  the  house  in  his 
Museum,  keep  it  in  repair,  protect  it  from  name- 
scribblers  and  other  desecrators,  and  leave  it  by 
bequest  to  the  safe  and  perpetual  guardianship  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institute  at  Washington. 

But  as  soon  as  it  was  found  that  Shakespeare's 
house  had  passed  into  foreign  hands  and  was  going 
to  be  carried  across  the  ocean,  England  was  stirred 
as  no  appeal  from  the  custodians  of  the  relic  had 
ever  stirred  England  before,  and  protests  came  flow 
ing  in — and  money,  too,  to  stop  the  outrage.  Offers 
of  repurchase  were  made  —  offers  of  double  the 
money  that  Mr.  Barnum  had  paid  for  the  house. 
He  handed  the  house  back,  but  took  only  the  sum 
which  it  had  cost  him — but  on  the  condition  that 
an  endowment  sufficient  for  the  future  safe-guarding 
and  maintenance  of  the  sacred  relic  should  be  raised. 
This  condition  was  fulfilled. 

316 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

That  was  Barnum's  account  of  the  episode;  and 
to  the  end  of  his  days  he  claimed  with  pride  and 
satisfaction  that  not  England,  but  America — repre 
sented  by  him — saved  the  birthplace  of  Shakespeare 
from  destruction. 

At  3  P.M.,  May  6th,  the  ship  slowed  down,  off 
the  land,  and  thoughtfully  and  cautiously  picked  her 
way  into  the  snug  harbor  of  Durban,  South  Africa. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

GOOD  WORK  OF  THE  DOUR  TRAPPISTS 

In  statesmanship  get  the  formalities  right,  never  mind  about  the  moralities. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

FROM  DIARY: 
Royal  Hotel.  Comfortable,  good  table,  good 
service  of  natives  and  Madrasis.  Curious  jumble  of 
modern  and  ancient  city  and  village,  primitiveness 
and  the  other  thing.  Electric  bells,  but  they  don't 
ring.  Asked  why  they  didn't,  the  watchman  in  the 
office  said  he  thought  they  must  be  out  of  order;  he 
thought  so  because  some  of  them  rang,  but  most  of 
them  didn't.  Wouldn't  it  be  a  good  idea  to  put 
them  in  order?  He  hesitated — like  one  who  isn't 
quite  sure — then  conceded  the  point. 

May  7.  A  bang  on  the  door  at  six.  Did  I  want 
my  boots  cleaned?  Fifteen  minutes  later  another 
bang.  Did  we  want  coffee?  Fifteen  later,  bang 
again,  my  wife's  bath  ready;  fifteen  later,  my  bath 
ready.  Two  other  bangs;  I  forget  what  they  were 
about.  Then  lots  of  shouting  back  and  forth,  among 
the  servants,  just  as  in  an  Indian  hotel. 

Evening.  At  4  P.M.  it  was  unpleasantly  warm. 
Half -hour  after  sunset  one  needed  a  spring  overcoat; 
by  eight  a  winter  one. 

Durban  is  a  neat  and  clean  town.  One  notices 
that  without  having  his  attention  called  to  it. 

'Rikishas  drawn  by  splendidly  built  black  Zulus, 
318 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

so  overflowing  with  strength,  seemingly,  that  it  is  a 
pleasure,  not  a  pain,  to  see  them  snatch  a  'rikisha 
along.  They  smile  and  laugh  and  show  their  teeth 
— a  good-natured  lot.  Not  allowed  to  drink;  28 
per  hour  for  one  person;  3"  for  two;  3d  for  a  course 
— one  person. 

The  chameleon  in  the  hotel  court.  He  is  fat  and 
indolent  and  contemplative ;  but  is  businesslike  and 
capable  when  a  fly  comes  about — reaches  out  a 
tongue  like  a  teaspoon  and  takes  him  in.  He  gums 
his  tongue  first.  He  is  always  pious,  in  his  looks. 
And  pious  and  thankful  both,  when  Providence  or 
one  of  us  sends  him  a  fly.  He  has  a  froggy  head, 
and  a  back  like  a  new  grave — for  shape;  and  hands 
like  a  bird's  toes  that  have  been  frost-bitten.  But 
his  eyes  are  his  exhibition  feature.  A  couple  of 
skinny  cones  project  from  the  sides  of  his  head,  with 
a  wee  shiny  bead  of  an  eye  set  in  the  apex  of  each; 
and  these  cones  turn  bodily  like  pivot-guns  and  point 
every  which  way,  and  they  are  independent  of  each 
other;  each  has  its  own  exclusive  machinery.  When 
I  am  behind  him  and  C.  in  front  of  him,  he  whirls 
one  eye  rearward  and  the  other  forward  —  which 
gives  him  a  most  Congressional  expression  (one  eye 
on  the  constituency  and  one  on  the  swag);  and 
then  if  something  happens  above  and  below  him  he 
shoots  out  one  eye  upward  like  a  telescope  and  the 
other  downward — and  this  changes  his  expression, 
but  does  not  improve  it. 

Natives  must  not  be  out  after  the  curfew-bell  with 
out  a  pass.  In  Natal  there  are  ten  blacks  to  one  white. 

Sturdy  plump  creatures  are  the  women.  They 
319 


MARK     TWAIN 

comb  their  wool  up  to  a  peak  and  keep  it  in  position 
by  stiffening  it  with  brown-red  clay — half  of  this 
tower  colored,  denotes  engagement;  the  whole  of 
it  colored,  denotes  marriage. 

None  but  heathen  Zulus  on  the  police;  Christian 
ones  not  allowed. 

May  Q.  A  drive  yesterday  with  friends  over  the 
Berea.  Very  fine  roads  and  lofty,  overlooking  the 
whole  town,  the  harbor,  and  the  sea — beautiful 
views.  Residences  all  along,  set  in  the  midst  of 
green  lawns  with  shrubs  and  generally  one  or  two 
intensely  red  outbursts  of  poinsettia — the  flaming 
splotch  of  blinding  red  a  stunning  contrast  with  the 
world  of  surrounding  green.  The  cactus  tree — 
candelabrumlike ;  and  one  twisted  like  gray  writh 
ing  serpents.  The  "flat-crown"  (should  be  flat- 
roof) — half  a  dozen  naked  branches  full  of  elbows, 
slant  upward  like  artificial  supports,  and  fling  a  roof 
of  delicate  foliage  out  in  a  horizontal  platform  as  flat 
as  a  floor;  and  you  look  up  through  this  thin  floor 
as  through  a  green  cobweb  or  veil.  The  branches 
are  japanesic.  All  about  you  is  a  bewildering  variety 
of  unfamiliar  and  beautiful  trees;  one  sort  wonder 
fully  dense  foliage  and  very  dark  green — so  dark 
that  you  notice  it  at  once,  notwithstanding  there 
are  so  many  orange  trees.  The  "flamboyant" — 
not  in  flower,  now,  but  when  in  flower  lives  up  to 
its  name,  we  are  told.  Another  tree  with  a  lovely 
upright  tassel  scattered  among  its  rich  greenery,  red 
and  glowing  as  a  fire-coal.  Here  and  there  a  gum 
tree;  half  a  dozen  lofty  Norfolk  Island  pines  lifting 
their  fronded  arms  skyward.  Groups  of  tall  bamboo. 

320 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Saw  one  bird.  Not  many  birds  here,  and  they 
have  no  music — and  the  flowers  not  much  smell, 
they  grow  so  fast. 

Everything  neat  and  trim  and  clean  like  the 
town.  The  loveliest  trees  and  the  greatest  variety 
I  have  ever  seen  anywhere,  except  approaching  Dar- 
jeeling.  Have  not  heard  any  one  call  Natal  the 
garden  of  South  Africa,  but  that  is  what  it  proba 
bly  is. 

It  was  when  Bishop  of  Natal  that  Colenso  raised 
such  a  storm  in  the  religious  world.  The  concerns 
of  religion  are  a  vital  matter  here  yet.  A  vigilant 
eye  is  kept  upon  Sunday.  Museums  and  other 
dangerous  resorts  are  not  allowed  to  be  open.  You 
may  sail  on  the  Bay,  but  it  is  wicked  to  play  cricket. 
For  a  while  a  Sunday  concert  was  tolerated,  upon 
condition  that  it  must  be  admission  free  and  the 
money  taken  by  collection.  But  the  collection  was 
alarmingly  large  and  that  stopped  the  matter.  They 
are  particular  about  babies.  A  clergyman  would 
not  bury  a  child  according  to  the  sacred  rites  because 
it  had  not  been  baptized.  The  Hindu  is  more  liberal. 
He  burns  no  child  under  three,  holding  that  it  does 
not  need  purifying. 

The  King  of  the  Zulus,  a  fine  fellow  of  thirty,  was 
banished  six  years  ago  for  a  term  of  seven  years. 
He  is  occupying  Napoleon's  old  stand — St.  Helena. 
The  people  are  a  little  nervous  about  having  him 
come  back,  and  they  may  well  be,  for  Zulu  kings 
have  been  terrible  people  sometimes — like  Tchaka, 
Dingaan,  and  Cetewayo. 

There  is  a  large  Trappist  monastery  two  hours 
321 


MARK     TWAIN 

from  Durban,  over  the  country  roads,  and  in  com 
pany  with  Mr.  Milligan  and  Mr.  Hunter,  general 
manager  of  the  Natal  Government  railways,  who 
knew  the  heads  of  it,  we  went  out  to  see  it. 

There  it  all  was,  just  as  one  reads  about  it  in 
books  and  cannot  believe  that  it  is  so — I  mean  the 
rough,  hard  work,  the  impossible  hours,  the  scanty 
food,  the  coarse  raiment,  the  Maryborough  beds,  the 
tabu  of  human  speech,  of  social  intercourse,  of 
relaxation,  of  amusement,  of  entertainment,  of  the 
presence  of  woman  in  the  men's  establishment. 
There  it  all  was.  It  was  not  a  dream,  it  was  not  a 
lie.  And  yet  with  the  fact  before  one's  face  it  was 
still  incredible.  It  is  such  a  sweeping  suppression  of 
human  instincts,  such  an  extinction  of  the  man  as 
an  individual. 

La  Trappe  must  have  known  the  human  race  well. 
The  scheme  which  he  invented  hunts  out  everything 
that  a  man  wants  and  values — and  withholds  it  from 
him.  Apparently  there  is  no  detail  that  can  help 
make  life  worth  living  that  has  not  been  carefully 
ascertained  and  placed  out  of  the  Trappist's  reach. 
La  Trappe  must  have  known  that  there  were  men 
who  would  enjoy  this  kind  of  misery,  but  how  did 
he  find  it  out? 

If  he  had  consulted  you  or  me  he  would  have  been 
told  that  his  scheme  lacked  too  many  attractions; 
that  it  was  impossible ;  that  it  could  never  be  floated. 
But  there  in  the  monastery  was  proof  that  he  knew 
the  human  race  better  than  it  knew  itself.  He  set 
his  foot  upon  every  desire  that  a  man  has — yet  he 
floated  his  project,  and  it  has  prospered  for  two 

322 


MARK     TWAIN 

from  Durb  ry  roads,  and  in  com 

pany  with  Mr.  Mr.  Hunter,  general 

manager  c  rnment  railwa> 

knew  t  vent  out  to  see  it. 

There  v-  one  reads  about  it  in 

books  and  c&  that  it  is  so — I  mean  the 

rough,  hard  w  •        p     ible  hours,  the  scanty 

nt,  the  Maryborough  beds,  the 

h,    of   social   intercourse,   of 

isement,  of  entertainment,  of  the 

presenc  voman   in   the  men's   establishment. 

There  it  all  was.    It  was  not  a  dream,  it  was  not  a 

lie.    And  yet  with  th  it  was 

i'RliSSlOJN 

•incts,  such  an  extinction  of  the  man  as 
an 

La 
Th 

thataroaj'  ies — «r  om 

him.  Apparently  there  is  no  detail  that  can  help 
make  life  worth  living  that  has  not  been  carefully 
ascertained  and  placed  out  of  the  Trappist's  reach. 
La  Trappe  must  have  known  that  there  were  men 
who  would  enjoy  this  kind  of  misery,  but  how 

If  1  i  you  or 

to!  ed  too 

that  it  i  ed. 

But  there  aew 

the  human  ra<  He  set 

his  foot  upon  man  has — yet  he 

floated  his  pr  jd  for  two 

322 


Iff 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

hundred  years,  and  will  go  on  prospering  forever, 
no  doubt. 

Man  likes  personal  distinction — there  in  the  mon 
astery  it  is  obliterated.  He  likes  delicious  food — 
there  he  gets  beans  and  bread  and  tea,  and  not 
enough  of  it.  He  likes  to  lie  softly — there  he  lies 
on  a  sand  mattress,  and  has  a  pillow  and  a  blanket, 
but  no  sheet.  When  he  is  dining,  in  a  great  com 
pany  of  friends,  he  likes  to  laugh  and  chat — there  a 
monk  reads  a  holy  book  aloud  during  meals,  and 
nobody  speaks  or  laughs.  When  a  man  has  a  hun 
dred  friends  about  him,  evenings,  he  likes  to  have  a 
good  time  and  run  late — there  he  and  the  rest  go 
silently  to  bed  at  eight;  and  in  the  dark,  too;  there  is 
but  a  loose  brown  robe  to  discard,  there  are  no  night- 
clothes  to  put  on,  a  light  is  not  needed.  Man  likes 
to  lie  abed  late — there  he  gets  up  once  or  twice  in 
the  night  to  perform  some  religious  office,  and  gets 
up  finally  for  the  day  at  two  in  the  morning.  Man 
likes  light  work  or  none  at  all — there  he  labors  all 
day  in  the  field,  or  in  the  blacksmith  shop  or  the  other 
shops  devoted  to  the  mechanical  trades,  such  as 
shoemaking,  saddlery,  carpentry,  and  so  on.  Man 
likes  the  society  of  girls  and  women — there  he  never 
has  it.  He  likes  to  have  his  children  about  him,  and 
pet  them  and  play  with  them — there  he  has  none. 
He  likes  billiards — there  is  no  table  there.  He  likes 
outdoor  sports  and  indoor  dramatic  and  musical  and 
social  entertainments — there  are  none  there.  He 
likes  to  bet  on  things — I  was  told  that  betting  is 
forbidden  there.  When  a  man's  temper  is  up  he  likes 
to  pour  it  out  upon  somebody — there  this  is  not 

323 


MARK     TWAIN 

allowed.  A  man  likes  animals — pets;  there  are  none 
there.  He  likes  to  smoke — there  he  cannot  do  it. 
He  likes  to  read  the  news — no  papers  or  magazines 
come  there.  A  man  likes  to  know  how  his  parents 
and  brothers  and  sisters  are  getting  along  when  he 
is  away,  and  if  they  miss  him — there  he  cannot 
know.  A  man  likes  a  pretty  house,  and  pretty 
furniture,  and  pretty  things,  and  pretty  colors — 
there  he  has  nothing  but  naked  aridity  and  somber 
colors.  A  man  likes — name  it  yourself:  whatever 
it  is,  it  is  absent  from  that  place. 

From  what  I  could  learn,  all  that  a  man  gets  for 
this  is  merely  the  saving  of  his  soul. 

It  all  seems  strange,  incredible,  impossible.  But 
La  Trappe  knew  the  race.  He  knew  the  powerful 
attraction  of  unattractiveness :  he  knew  that  no  life 
could  be  imagined,  howsoever  comfortless  and  for 
bidding,  but  somebody  would  want  to  try  it. 

This  parent  establishment  of  Germans  began  its 
work  fifteen  years  ago,  strangers,  poor,  and  unen- 
couraged ;  it  owns  fifteen  thousand  acres  of  land  now, 
and  raises  grain  and  fruit,  and  makes  wines,  and 
manufactures  all  manner  of  things,  and  has  native 
apprentices  in  its  shops,  and  sends  them  forth  able  to 
read  and  write,  and  also  well  equipped  to  earn  their 
living  by  their  trades.  And  this  young  establishment 
has  set  up  eleven  branches  in  South  Africa,  and  in 
them  they  are  Christianizing  and  educating  and 
teaching  wage-yielding  mechanical  trades  to  twelve 
hundred  boys  and  girls.  Protestant  Missionary  work 
is  coldly  regarded  by  the  commercial  white  colonists 
all  over  the  heathen  world,  as  a  rule,  and  its  product 

324 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

is  nicknamed  "rice-Christians"  (occupationless  in- 
capables  who  join  the  church  for  revenue  only),  but 
I  think  it  would  be  difficult  to  pick  a  flaw  in  the  work 
of  these  Catholic  monks,  and  I  believe  that  the  dis 
position  to  attempt  it  has  not  shown  itself. 

Tuesday,  May  12.  Transvaal  politics  in  a  con 
fused  condition.  First  the  sentencing  of  the  Johan 
nesburg  Reformers  startled  England  by  its  severity; 
on  the  top  of  this  came  Kruger's  exposure  of  the 
cipher  correspondence,  which  showed  that  the  inva 
sion  of  the  Transvaal,  with  the  design  of  seizing 
that  country  and  adding  it  to  the  British  Empire, 
was  planned  by  Cecil  Rhodes  and  Beit — which 
made  a  revulsion  in  English  feeling,  and  brought 
out  a  storm  against  Rhodes  and  the  Chartered  Com 
pany  for  degrading  British  honor.  For  a  good  while 
I  couldn't  seem  to  get  at  a  clear  comprehension  of 
it,  it  was  so  tangled.  But  at  last  by  patient  study 
I  have  managed  it,  I  believe.  As  I  understand  it, 
the  Uitlanders  and  other  Dutchmen  were  dissatisfied 
because  the  English  would  not  allow  them  to  take 
any  part  in  the  government  except  to  pay  taxes. 
Next,  as  I  understand  it,  Dr.  Kruger  and  Dr.  Jame 
son,  not  having  been  able  to  make  the  medical 
business  pay,  made  a  raid  into  Matabeleland  with 
the  intention  of  capturing  the  capital,  Johannesburg, 
and  holding  the  women  and  children  to  ransom 
until  the  Uitlanders  and  the  other  Boers  should  grant 
to  them  and  the  Chartered  Company  the  political 
rights  which  had  been  withheld  from  them.  They 
would  have  succeeded  in  this  great  scheme,  as  I 
understand  it,  but  for  the  interference  of  Cecil 

325 


MARK    TWAIN 

Rhodes  and  Mr.  Beit,  and  other  Chiefs  of  the 
Matabele,  who  persuaded  their  countrymen  to  revolt 
and  throw  off  their  allegiance  to  Germany.  This, 
in  turn,  as  I  understand  it,  provoked  the  King  of 
Abyssinia  to  destroy  the  Italian  army  and  fall  back 
upon  Johannesburg;  this  at  the  instigation  of  Rhodes, 
to  bull  the  stock  market. 


326 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  JAMESON^  RAID 

Every  one  is  a  moon,  and  has  a  dark  side  which  he  never  shows  to  anybody. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

WHEN  I  scribbled  in  my  note-book  a  year  ago 
the  paragraph  which  ends  the  preceding 
chapter,  it  was  meant  to  indicate,  in  an  extravagant 
form,  two  things :  the  conflicting  nature  of  the  infor 
mation  conveyed  by  the  citizen  to  the  stranger 
concerning  South  African  politics,  and  the  resulting 
confusion  created  in  the  stranger's  mind  thereby. 

But  it  does  not  seem  so  very  extravagant  now. 
Nothing  could  in  that  disturbed  and  excited  time 
make  South  African  politics  clear  or  quite  rational 
to  the  citizen  of  the  country  because  his  personal 
interest  and  his  political  prejudices  were  in  his  way; 
and  nothing  could  make  those  politics  clear  or  ra 
tional  to  the  stranger,  the  sources  of  his  information 
being  such  as  they  were. 

I  was  in  South  Africa  some  little  time.  When  I 
arrived  there  the  political  pot  was  boiling  fiercely. 
Four  months  previously,  Jameson  had  plunged  over 
the  Transvaal  border  with  about  six  hundred  armed 
horsemen  at  his  back,  to  go  to  the  "relief  of  the 
women  and  children"  of  Johannesburg;  on  the 
fourth  day  of  his  march  the  Boers  had  defeated  him 
in  battle,  and  carried  him  and  his  men  to  Pretoria, 

327 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  capital,  as  prisoners;  the  Boer  Government  had 
turned  Jameson  and  his  officers  over  to  the  British 
Government  for  trial,  and  shipped  them  to  England ; 
next,  it  had  arrested  sixty-four  important  citizens  of 
Johannesburg  as  raid-conspirators,  condemned  their 
four  leaders  to  death,  then  commuted  the  sentences, 
and  now  the  sixty-four  were  waiting,  in  jail,  for 
further  results.  Before  midsummer  they  were  all 
out  excepting  two,  who  refused  to  sign  the  petitions 
for  release;  fifty-eight  had  been  fined  $10,000  each 
and  enlarged,  and  the  four  leaders  had  gotten  off 
with  fines  of  $125,000  each — with  permanent  exile 
added,  in  one  case. 

Those  were  wonderfully  interesting  days  for  a 
stranger,  and  I  was  glad  to  be  in  the  thick  of  the 
excitement.  Everybody  was  talking,  and  I  expected 
to  understand  the  whole  of  one  side  of  it  in  a  very 
little  while. 

I  was  disappointed.  There  were  singularities, 
perplexities,  unaccountabilities  about  it  which  I  was 
not  able  to  master.  I  had  no  personal  access  to 
Boers — their  side  was  a  secret  to  me,  aside  from 
what  I  was  able  to  gather  of  it  from  published  state 
ments.  My  sympathies  were  soon  with  the  Reform 
ers  in  the  Pretoria  jail,  with  their  friends,  and  with 
their  cause.  By  diligent  inquiry  in  Johannesburg  I 
found  out — apparently — all  the  details  of  their  side 
of  the  quarrel  except  one — what  they  expected  to 
accomplish  by  an  armed  rising. 

Nobody  seemed  to  know. 

The  reason  why  the  Reformers  were  discontented 
and  wanted  some  changes  made,  seemed  quite  clear. 

328 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

In  Johannesburg  it  was  claimed  that  the  Uitlanders 
(strangers,  foreigners)  paid  thirteen-fifteenths  of  the 
Transvaal  taxes,  yet  got  little  or  nothing  for  it. 
Their  city  had  no  charter;  it  had  no  municipal  gov 
ernment  ;  it  could  levy  no  taxes  for  drainage,  water- 
supply,  paving,  cleaning,  sanitation,  policing.  There 
was  a  police  force,  but  it  was  composed  of  Boers;  it 
was  furnished  by  the  state  government,  and  the  city 
had  no  control  over  it.  Mining  was  very  costly; 
the  government  enormously  increased  the  cost  by 
putting  burdensome  taxes  upon  the  mines,  the  out 
put,  the  machinery,  the  buildings;  by  burdensome 
imposts  upon  incoming  materials;  by  burdensome 
railway-freight  charges.  Hardest  of  all  to  bear,  the 
government  reserved  to  itself  a  monopoly  in  that 
essential  thing,  dynamite,  and  burdened  it  with  an 
extravagant  price.  The  detested  Hollander  from 
over  the  water  held  all  the  public  offices.  The  gov 
ernment  was  rank  with  corruption.  The  Uit lander 
had  no  vote,  and  must  live  in  the  state  ten  or  twelve 
years  before  he  could  get  one.  He  was  not  repre 
sented  in  the  Raad  (legislature)  that  oppressed  him 
and  fleeced  him.  Religion  was  not  free.  There 
were  no  schools  where  the  teaching  was  in  English, 
yet  the  great  majority  of  the  white  population  of  the 
state  knew  no  tongue  but  that.  The  state  would 
not  pass  a  liquor  law;  but  allowed  a  great  trade  in 
cheap  vile  brandy  among  the  blacks,  with  the  result 
that  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  fifty  thousand  blacks 
employed  in  the  mines  were  usually  drunk  and 
incapable  of  working. 

There — it  was  plain  enough  that  the  reasons  for 
329 


MARK    TWAIN 

wanting  some  changes  made  were  abundant  and 
reasonable,  if  this  statement  of  the  existing  grievances 
was  correct. 

What  the  Uitlanders  wanted  was  reform — under 
the  existing  Republic. 

What  they  proposed  to  do  was  to  secure  these 
reforms  by  prayer,  petition,  and  persuasion. 

They  did  petition.  Also,  they  issued  a  Manifesto, 
whose  very  first  note  is  a  bugle-blast  of  loyalty: 
"We  want  the  establishment  of  this  Republic  as  a 
true  Republic." 

Could  anything  be  clearer  than  the  Uitlanders' 
statement  of  the  grievances  and  oppressions  under 
which  they  were  suffering?  Could  anything  be  more 
legal  and  citizenlike  and  law-respecting  than  their 
attitude  as  expressed  by  their  Manifesto?  No. 
Those  things  were  perfectly  clear,  perfectly  compre 
hensible. 

But  at  this  point  the  puzzles  and  riddles  and  con 
fusions  begin  to  flock  in.  You  have  arrived  at  a 
place  which  you  cannot  quite  understand. 

For  you  find  that  as  a  preparation  for  this  loyal, 
lawful,  and  in  every  way  unexceptionable  attempt  to 
persuade  the  government  to  right  their  grievances, 
the  Uitlanders  had  smuggled  a  Maxim  gun  or  two 
and  fifteen  hundred  muskets  into  the  town,  con 
cealed  in  oil-tanks  and  coal-cars,  and  had  begun  to 
form  and  drill  military  companies  composed  of  clerks, 
merchants,  and  citizens  generally. 

What  was  their  idea?  Did  they  suppose  that  the 
Boers  would  attack  them  for  petitioning  for  redress? 
That  could  not  be. 

330 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

Did  they  suppose  that  the  Boers  would  attack 
them  even  for  issuing  a  Manifesto  demanding  relief 
under  the  existing  government? 

Yes,  they  apparently  believed  so,  because  the  air 
was  full  of  talk  of  forcing  the  government  to  grant 
redress  if  it  were  not  granted  peacefully. 

The  Reformers  were  men  of  high  intelligence.  If 
they  were  in  earnest,  they  were  taking  extraordinary 
risks.  They  had  enormously  valuable  properties  to 
defend;  their  town  was  full  of  women  and  children; 
their  mines  and  compounds  were  packed  with  thou 
sands  upon  thousands  of  sturdy  blacks.  If  the  Boers 
attacked,  the  mines  would  close,  the  blacks  would 
swarm  out  and  get  drunk;  riot  and  conflagration 
and  the  Boers  together  might  lose  the  Reformers 
more  in  a  day,  in  money,  blood,  and  suffering,  than 
the  desired  political  relief  could  compensate  in  ten 
years  if  they  won  the  fight  and  secured  the  reforms. 

It  is  May,  1897,  now;  a  year  has  gone  by,  and 
the  confusions  of  that  day  have  been  to  a  consider 
able  degree  cleared  away.  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  Dr. 
Jameson,  and  others  responsible  for  the  Raid,  have 
testified  before  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  In 
quiry  in  London,  and  so  have  Mr.  Lionel  Phillips  and 
other  Johannesburg  Reformers,  monthly-nurses  of 
the  Revolution  which  was  born  dead.  These  testi 
monies  have  thrown  light.  Three  books  have  added 
much  to  this  light:  South  Africa  As  It  Is,  by  Mr. 
Statham,  an  able  writer  partial  to  the  Boers;  The 
Story  of  an  African  Crisis,  by  Mr.  Garrett,  a  brilliant 
writer  partial  to  Rhodes ;  and  A  Woman's  Part  in  a 
Revolution,  by  Mrs.  John  Hayes  Hammond,  a  vigor- 

331 


MARK     TWAIN 

ous  and  vivid  diarist,  partial  to  the  Reformers.  By 
liquefying  the  evidence  of  the  prejudiced  books  and 
of  the  prejudiced  parliamentary  witnesses  and  stir 
ring  the  whole  together  and  pouring  it  into  my  own 
(prejudiced)  molds,  I  have  got  at  the  truth  of  that 
puzzling  South  African  situation,  which  is  this: 

1.  The  capitalists  and  other  chief  men  of  Johan 
nesburg  were  fretting  under  various  political  and 
financial  burdens  imposed  by  the  state  (the  South 
African  Republic,  sometimes  called  "the  Transvaal") 
and  desired  to  procure  by  peaceful  means  a  modi 
fication  of  the  laws. 

2.  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  Premier  of  the  British  Cape 
Colony,  millionaire,  creator  and  managing  director 
of  the  territorially  immense  and  financially  unpro 
ductive  South  African  Company;   projector  of  vast 
schemes  for  the  unification  and  consolidation  of  all 
the  South  African  states  into  one  imposing  com 
monwealth  or  empire  under  the  shadow  and  general 
protection  of  the  British  flag,  thought  he  saw  an 
opportunity  to  make  profitable  use  of  the  Uitlander 
discontent  above  mentioned — make  the  Johannes 
burg  cat  help  pull  out  one  of  his  consolidation  chest 
nuts  for  him.    With  this  view  he  set  himself  the  task 
of  warming  the  lawful  and  legitimate  petitions  and 
supplications  of  the  Uitlanders  into  seditious  talk, 
and  their  frettings  into  threatenings — the  final  out 
come  to  be  revolt  and  armed  rebellion.    If  he  could 
bring  about  a  bloody  collision  between  those  people 
and  the  Boer  Government,  Great  Britain  would  have 
to  interfere;   her  interference  would  be  resisted  by 
the  Boers;    she  would  chastise  them  and  add  the 

332 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

Transvaal  to  her  South  African  possessions.  It  was 
not  a  foolish  idea,  but  a  rational  and  practical  one. 

After  a  couple  of  years  of  judicious  plotting,  Mr. 
Rhodes  had  his  reward;  the  revolutionary  kettle  was 
briskly  boiling  in  Johannesburg,  and  the  Uitlander 
leaders  were  backing  their  appeals  to  the  government 
— now  hardened  into  demands — by  threats  of  force 
and  bloodshed.  By  the  middle  of  December,  1895, 
the  explosion  seemed  imminent.  Mr.  Rhodes  was 
diligently  helping,  from  his  distant  post  in  Cape 
Town.  He  was  helping  to  procure  arms  for  Johan 
nesburg;  he  was  also  arranging  to  have  Jameson 
break  over  the  border  and  come  to  Johannesburg 
with  six  hundred  mounted  men  at  his  back.  Jameson 
— as  per  instructions  from  Rhodes,  perhaps — wanted 
a  letter  from  the  Reformers  requesting  him  to  come 
to  their  aid.  It  was  a  good  idea.  It  would  throw  a 
considerable  share  of  the  responsibility  of  his  inva 
sion  upon  the  Reformers.  He  got  the  letter — that 
famous  one  urging  him  to  fly  to  the  rescue  of  the 
women  and  children.  He  got  it  two  months  before 
he  flew.  The  Reformers  seem  to  have  thought  it 
over  and  concluded  that  they  had  not  done  wisely; 
for  the  next  day  after  giving  Jameson  the  implicating 
document  they  wanted  to  withdraw  it  and  leave  the 
women  and  children  in  danger;  but  they  were  told 
that  it  was  too  late.  The  original  had  gone  to  Mr. 
Rhodes  at  the  Cape.  Jameson  had  kept  a  copy, 
though. 

From  that  time  until  the  2pth  of  December,  a  good 
deal  of  the  Reformers'  time  was  taken  up  with  ener 
getic  efforts  to  keep  Jameson  from  coming  to  their 

333 


MARK    TWAIN 

assistance.  Jameson's  invasion  had  been  set  for  the 
26th.  The  Reformers  were  not  ready.  The  town 
was  not  united.  Some  wanted  a  fight,  some  wanted 
peace ;  some  wanted  a  new  government,  some  wanted 
the  existing  one  reformed;  apparently  very  few 
wanted  the  revolution  to  take  place  in  the  interest 
and  under  the  ultimate  shelter  of  the  Imperial  flag — 
British;  yet  a  report  began  to  spread  that  Mr. 
Rhodes's  embarrassing  assistance  had  for  its  end  this 
latter  object. 

Jameson  was  away  on  the  frontier  tugging  at  his 
leash,  fretting  to  burst  over  the  border.  By  hard 
work  the  Reformers  got  his  starting-date  postponed 
a  little,  and  wanted  to  get  it  postponed  eleven  days. 
Apparently,  Rhodes's  agents  were  seconding  their 
efforts — in  fact  wearing  out  the  telegraph-wires  try 
ing  to  hold  him  back.  Rhodes  was  himself  the  only 
man  who  could  have  effectively  postponed  Jameson, 
but  that  would  have  been  a  disadvantage  to  his 
scheme;  indeed,  it  could  spoil  his  whole  two  years* 
work. 

Jameson  endured  postponement  three  days,  then 
resolved  to  wait  no  longer.  Without  any  orders — 
excepting  Mr.  Rhodes's  significant  silence — he  cut 
the  telegraph-wires  on  the  2gth,  and  made  his  plunge 
that  night,  to  go  to  the  rescue  of  the  women  and 
children,  by  urgent  request  of  a  letter  now  nine  days 
old — as  per  date — a  couple  of  months  old,  in  fact. 
He  read  the  letter  to  his  men,  and  it  affected  them. 
It  did  not  affect  all  of  them  alike.  Some  saw  in  it  a 
piece  of  piracy  of  doubtful  wisdom,  and  were  sorry 
to  find  that  they  had  been  assembled  to  violate 

334 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

friendly  territory  instead  of  to  raid  native  kraals,  as 
they  had  supposed. 

Jameson  would  have  to  ride  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles.  He  knew  that  there  were  suspicions  abroad 
in  the  Transvaal  concerning  him,  but  he  expected  to 
get  through  to  Johannesburg  before  they  should 
become  general  and  obstructive.  But  a  telegraph- 
wire  had  been  overlooked  and  not  cut.  It  spread 
the  news  of  his  invasion  far  and  wide,  and  a  few  hours 
after  his  start  the  Boer  farmers  were  riding  hard 
from  every  direction  to  intercept  him. 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  in  Johannesburg  that  he 
was  on  his  way  to  rescue  the  women  and  children, 
the  grateful  people  put  the  women  and  children  in 
a  train  and  rushed  them  for  Australia.  In  fact,  the 
approach  of  Johannesburg's  savior  created  panic 
and  consternation  there,  and  a  multitude  of  males  of 
peaceable  disposition  swept  to  the  trains  like  a  sand 
storm.  The  early  ones  fared  best;  they  secured 
seats — by  sitting  in  them — eight  hours  before  the 
first  train  was  timed  to  leave. 

Mr.  Rhodes  lost  no  time.  He  cabled  the  renowned 
Johannesburg  letter  of  invitation  to  the  London 
press — the  gray-headedest  piece  of  ancient  history 
that  ever  went  over  a  cable. 

The  new  poet  laureate  lost  no  time.  He  came 
out  with  a  rousing  poem  lauding  Jameson's  prompt 
and  splendid  heroism  in  flying  to  the  rescue  of  the 
women  and  children;  for  the  poet  could  not  know 
that  he  did  not  fly  until  two  months  after  the  invita 
tion.  He  was  deceived  by  the  false  date  of  the 
letter,  which  was  December  2oth. 

335 


MARK     TWAIN 

Jameson  was  intercepted  by  the  Boers  on  New- 
year's  Day,  and  on  the  next  day  he  surrendered. 
He  had  carried  his  copy  of  the  letter  along,  and  if 
his  instructions  required  him — in  case  of  emergency — 
to  see  that  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Boers,  he 
loyally  carried  them  out.  Mrs.  Hammond  gives 
him  a  sharp  rap  for  his  supposed  carelessness,  and 
emphasizes  her  feeling  about  it  with  burning  italics: 
"It  was  picked  up  on  the  battle-field  in  a  leathern 
pouch,  supposed  to  be  Dr.  Jameson's  saddle-bag. 
Why,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  discreet  and  honorable, 
didn't  he  eat  it!" 

She  requires  too  much.  He  was  not  in  the  service 
of  the  Reformers — excepting  ostensibly;  he  was  in 
the  service  of  Mr.  Rhodes.  It  was  the  only  plain 
English  document,  undarkened  by  ciphers  and  mys 
teries,  and  responsibly  signed  and  authenticated, 
which  squarely  implicated  the  Reformers  in  the  raid, 
and  it  was  not  to  Mr.  Rhodes's  interest  that  it  should 
be  eaten.  Besides,  that  letter  was  not  the  original, 
it  was  only  a  copy.  Mr.  Rhodes  had  the  original — 
and  didn't  eat  it.  He  cabled  it  to  the  London  press. 
It  had  already  been  read  in  England  and  America 
and  all  over  Europe  before  Jameson  dropped  it  on 
the  battle-field.  If  the  subordinate's  knuckles  de 
served  a  rap,  the  principal's  deserved  as  many  as  a 
couple  of  them. 

That  letter  is  a  juicily  dramatic  incident  and  is 
entitled  to  all  its  celebrity,  because  of  the  odd  and 
variegated  effects  which  it  produced.  All  within  the 
space  of  a  single  week  it  had  made  Jameson  an  illus 
trious  hero  in  England,  a  pirate  in  Pretoria,  and  an 

336 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

ass  without  discretion  or  honor  in  Johannesburg; 
also  it  had  produced  a  poet-laureatic  explosion  of 
colored  fireworks  which  filled  the  world's  sky  with 
giddy  splendors,  and  the  knowledge  that  Jameson 
was  coming  with  it  to  rescue  the  women  and  children 
emptied  Johannesburg  of  that  detail  of  the  popula 
tion.  For  an  old  letter,  this  was  much.  For  a 
letter  two  months  old,  it  did  marvels ;  if  it  had  been 
a  year  old  it  would  have  done  miracles. 


337 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WHY  THE  BOERS  BEAT  JAMESON 

First  catch  your  Boer,  then  kick  him. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THOSE  latter  days  were  days  of  bitter  worry  and 
trouble  for  the  harassed  Reformers. 

From  Mrs.  Hammond  we  learn  that  on  the  3ist 
(the  day  after  Johannesburg  heard  of  the  invasion), 
"the  Reform  Committee  repudiates  Dr.  Jameson's 
inroad." 

It  also  publishes  its  intention  to  adhere  to  the 
Manifesto. 

It  also  earnestly  desires  that  the  inhabitants  shall 
refrain  from  overt  acts  against  the  Boer  Government. 

It  also  "distributes  arms'*  at  the  Court  House,  and 
furnishes  horses  "to  the  newly  enrolled  volunteers." 

It  also  brings  a  Transvaal  flag  into  the  committee- 
room,  and  the  entire  body  swear  allegiance  to  it 
"with  uncovered  heads  and  upraised  arms." 

Also  "one  thousand  Lee-Metford  rifles  have  been 
given  out" — to  rebels. 

Also,  in  a  speech,  Reformer  Lionel  Phillips  in 
forms  the  public  that  the  Reform  Committee  Dele 
gation  has  "been  received  with  courtesy  by  the 
Government  Commission,"  and  "been  assured  that 
their  proposals  shall  be  earnestly  considered."  That 
"while  the  Reform  Committee  regretted  Jameson's 
precipitate  action,  they  would  stand  by  him." 

338 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

Also  the  populace  are  in  a  state  of  "wild  enthu 
siasm,"  and  "can  scarcely  be  restrained;  they  want 
to  go  out  to  meet  Jameson  and  bring  him  in  with 
triumphal  outcry." 

Also  the  British  High  Commissioner  has  issued  a 
damnifying  proclamation  against  Jameson  and  all 
British  abettors  of  his  game.  It  arrives  January  ist. 

It  is  a  difficult  position  for  the  Reformers,  and 
full  of  hindrances  and  perplexities.  Their  duty  is 
hard  but  plain: 

1.  They  have  to  repudiate  the  inroad,  and  stand 
by  the  inroader. 

2.  They  have  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  Boer 
Government,  and  distribute  cavalry  horses  to  the 
rebels. 

3.  They  have  to  forbid  overt  acts  against  the  Boer 
Government,  and  distribute  arms  to  its  enemies. 

4.  They  have  to  avoid  collision  with  the  British 
Government,  but  still  stand  by  Jameson  and  their  new 
oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Boer  Government,  taken, 
uncovered,  in  presence  of  its  flag. 

They  did  such  of  these  things  as  they  could;  they 
tried  to  do  them  all;  in  fact,  did  do  them  all,  but 
only  in  turn,  not  simultaneously.  In  the  nature  of 
things  they  could  not  be  made  to  simultane. 

In  preparing  for  armed  revolution  and  in  talking 
revolution,  were  the  Reformers  "bluffing,"  or  were 
they  in  earnest?  If  they  were  in  earnest,  they  were 
taking  great  risks — as  has  been  already  pointed 
out.  A  gentleman  of  high  position  told  me  in 
Johannesburg  that  he  had  in  his  possession  a  printed 
document  proclaiming  a  new  government  and  naming 

339 


MARK    TWAIN 

its  president — one  of  the  Reform  leaders.  He  said 
that  this  proclamation  had  been  ready  for  issue,  but 
was  suppressed  when  the  raid  collapsed.  Perhaps  I 
misunderstood  him.  Indeed,  I  must  have  misunder 
stood  him,  for  I  have  not  seen  mention  of  this  large 
incident  in  print  anywhere. 

Besides,  I  hope  I  am  mistaken;  for,  if  I  am,  then 
there  is  argument  that  the  Reformers  were  privately 
not  serious,  but  were  only  trying  to  scare  the  Boer 
Government  into  granting  the  desired  reforms. 

The  Boer  Government  was  scared,  and  it  had  a 
right  to  be.  For  if  Mr.  Rhodes's  plan  was  to  pro 
voke  a  collision  that  would  compel  the  interference 
of  England,  that  was  a  serious  matter.  If  it  could 
be  shown  that  that  was  also  the  Reformers'  plan 
and  purpose,  it  would  prove  that  they  had  marked 
out  a  feasible  project,  at  any  rate,  although  it  was 
one  which  could  hardly  fail  to  cost  them  ruinously 
before  England  should  arrive.  But  it  seems  clear 
that  they  had  no  such  plan  nor  desire.  If,  when 
the  worst  should  come  to  the  worst,  they  meant  to 
overthrow  the  government,  they  also  meant  to 
inherit  the  assets  themselves,  no  doubt. 

This  scheme  could  hardly  have  succeeded.  With 
an  army  of  Boers  at  their  gates  and  fifty  thousand 
riotous  blacks  in  their  midst,  the  odds  against  success 
would  have  been  too  heavy — even  if  the  whole  town 
had  been  armed.  With  only  twenty-five  hundred 
rifles  in  the  place,  they  stood  really  no  chance. 

To  me,  the  military  problems  of  the  situation  are 
of  more  interest  than  the  political  ones,  because  by 
disposition  I  have  always  been  especially  fond  of 

340 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

war.  No,  I  mean  fond  of  discussing  war;  and  fond 
of  giving  military  advice.  If  I  had  been  with 
Jameson  the  morning  after  he  started,  I  should  have 
advised  him  to  turn  back.  That  was  Monday;  it 
was  then  that  he  received  his  first  warning  from  a 
Boer  source  not  to  violate  the  friendly  soil  of  the 
Transvaal.  It  showed  that  his  invasion  was  known. 
If  I  had  been  with  him  on  Tuesday  morning  and 
afternoon,  when  he  received  further  warnings,  I 
should  have  repeated  my  advice.  If  I  had  been 
with  him  the  next  morning — New  Year's — when  he 
received  notice  that  "a  few  hundred"  Boers  were 
waiting  for  him  a  few  miles  ahead,  I  should  not 
have  advised,  but  commanded  him  to  go  back. 
And  if  I  had  been  with  him  two  or  three  hours 
later — a  thing  not  conceivable  to  me — I  should  have 
retired  him  by  force;  for  at  that  time  he  learned  that 
the  few  hundred  had  now  grown  to  800;  and  that 
meant  that  the  growing  would  go  on  growing. 

For,  by  authority  of  Mr.  Garrett,  one  knows  that 
Jameson's  600  were  only  530  at  most,  when  you 
count  out  his  native  drivers,  etc. ;  and  that  the  530 
consisted  largely  of  "green"  youths,  "raw  young 
fellows,"  not  trained  and  war-worn  British  soldiers; 
and  I  would  have  told  Jameson  that  those  lads  would 
not  be  able  to  shoot  effectively  from  horseback  in 
the  scamper  and  racket  of  battle,  and  that  there 
would  not  be  anything  for  them  to  shoot  at,  anyway, 
but  rocks;  for  the  Boers  would  be  behind  the  rocks, 
not  out  in  the  open.  I  would  have  told  him  that  300 
Boer  sharp-shooters  behind  rocks  would  be  an  over 
match  for  his  500  raw  young  fellows  on  horseback. 

34i 


MARK    TWAIN 

If  pluck  were  the  only  thing  essential  to  battle- 
winning,  the  English  would  lose  no  battles.  But 
discretion,  as  well  as  pluck,  is  required  when  one 
fights  Boers  and  Red  Indians.  In  South  Africa  the 
Briton  has  always  insisted  upon  standing  bravely 
up,  unsheltered,  before  the  hidden  Boer,  and  taking 
the  results.  Jameson's  men  would  follow  the  cus 
tom.  Jameson  would  not  have  listened  to  me — he 
would  have  been  intent  upon  repeating  history,  ac 
cording  to  precedent.  Americans  are  not  acquainted 
with  the  British-Boer  war  of  1881 ;  but  its  history  is 
interesting,  and  could  have  been  instructive  to 
Jameson  if  he  had  been  receptive.  I  will  cull  some 
details  of  it  from  trustworthy  sources — mainly  from 
Russell's  Natal  Mr.  Russell  is  not  a  Boer,  but  a 
Briton.  He  is  inspector  of  schools,  and  his  history 
is  a  text-book  whose  purpose  is  the  instruction  of 
the  Natal  English  youth. 

After  the  seizure  of  the  Transvaal  and  the  sup 
pression  of  the  Boer  Government  by  England  in 
1877,  the  Boers  fretted  for  three  years,  and  made 
several  appeals  to  England  for  a  restoration  of  their 
liberties,  but  without  result.  Then  they  gathered 
themselves  together  in  a  great  mass-meeting  at 
Krugersdorp,  talked  their  troubles  over,  and  resolved 
to  fight  for  their  deliverance  from  the  British  yoke. 
(Krugersdorp — the  place  where  the  Boers  inter 
rupted  the  Jameson  raid.)  The  little  handful  of 
farmers  rose  against  the  strongest  empire  in  the 
world.  They  proclaimed  martial  law  and  the  re- 
establishment  of  their  Republic.  They  organized 
their  forces  and  sent  them  forward  to  intercept  the 

342 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

British  battalions.  This,  although  Sir  Garnet  Wolse- 
ley  had  but  lately  made  proclamation  that  "so 
long  as  the  sun  shone  in  the  heavens,"  the  Transvaal 
would  be  and  remain  English  territory.  And  also 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  commander  of  the  Ninety- 
fourth  Regiment — already  on  the  march  to  suppress 
this  rebellion — had  been  heard  to  say  that  "the 
Boers  would  turn  tail  at  the  first  beat  of  the  big 
drum."1 

Four  days  after  the  flag-raising,  the  Boer  force 
which  had  been  sent  forward  to  forbid  the  invasion 
of  the  English  troops  met  them  at  Bronkhorst  Spruit 
— two  hundred  and  forty-six  men  of  the  Ninety- 
fourth  Regiment,  in  command  of  a  colonel,  the  big 
drum  beating,  the  band  playing — and  the  first  battle 
was  fought.  It  lasted  ten  minutes.  Result : 

British  loss,  more  than  150  officers  and  men,  out  of 
the  246.  Surrender  of  the  remnant. 

Boer  loss — if  any — not  stated. 

They  are  fine  marksmen,  the  Boers.  From  the 
cradle  up,  they  live  on  horseback  and  hunt  wild 
animals  with  the  rifle.  They  have  a  passion  for 
liberty  and  the  Bible,  and  care  for  nothing  else. 

"General  Sir  George  Colley,  Lieutenant-Governor 
and  Commander-in-Chief  in  Natal,  felt  it  his  duty  to 
proceed  at  once  to  the  relief  of  the  loyalists  and 
soldiers  beleaguered  in  the  different  towns  of  the 
Transvaal."  He  moved  out  with  one  thousand  men 
and  some  artillery.  He  found  the  Boers  encamped 
in  a  strong  and  sheltered  position  on  high  ground  at 

1  South  Africa  As  It  Is, by  F.  Reginald  Statham, page  82 .  London : 
T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1897. 

343 


MARK    TWAIN 

Laing's  Nek — every  Boer  behind  a  rock.  Early  in 
the  morning  of  the  28th  of  January,  1881,  he  moved 
to  the  attack  "with  the  Fifty-eighth  Regiment,  com 
manded  by  Colonel  Deane,  a  mounted  squadron  of 
seventy  men,  the  Sixtieth  Rifles,  the  Naval  Brigade 
with  three  rocket  tubes,  and  the  Artillery  with  six 
guns. ' '  He  shelled  the  Boers  for  twenty  minutes,  then 
the  assault  was  delivered,  the  Fifty-eighth  marching 
up  the  slope  in  solid  column.  The  battle  was  soon 
finished,  with  this  result,  according  to  Russell : 

British  loss  in  killed  and  wounded,  174. 

Boer  loss," trifling" 

Colonel  Deane  was  killed,  and  apparently  every 
officer  above  the  grade  of  lieutenant  was  killed  or 
wounded,  for  the  Fifty-eighth  retreated  to  its  camp 
in  command  of  a  lieutenant.  (Africa  As  It  Is.) 

That  ended  the  second  battle. 

On  the  yth  of  February  General  Colley  discovered 
that  the  Boers  were  flanking  his  position.  The  next 
morning  he  left  his  camp  at  Mount  Pleasant  and 
marched  out  and  crossed  the  Ingogo  River  with 
two  hundred  and  seventy  men,  started  up  the 
Ingogo  heights,  and  there  fought  a  battle  which 
lasted  from  noon  till  nightfall.  He  then  retreated, 
leaving  his  wounded  with  his  military  chaplain,  and 
in  recrossing  the  now  swollen  river  lost  some  of  his 
men  by  drowning.  That  was  the  third  Boer  victory. 
Result,  according  to  Mr.  Russell : 

British  loss,  150  out  of  270  engaged. 

Boer  loss,  8  killed,  9  wounded — 17. 

There  was  a  season  of  quiet,  now,  but  at  the  end 
of  about  three  weeks  Sir  George  Colley  conceived 

344 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

the  idea  of  climbing,  with  an  infantry  and  artillery 
force,  the  steep  and  rugged  mountain  of  Amajuba  in 
the  night — a  bitter  hard  task,  but  he  accomplished 
it.  On  the  way  he  left  about  two  hundred  men  to 
guard  a  strategic  point,  and  took  about  four  hundred 
up  the  mountain  with  him.  When  the  sun  rose  in 
the  morning,  there  was  an  unpleasant  surprise  for 
the  Boers;  yonder  were  the  English  troops  visible 
on  top  of  the  mountain  two  or  three  miles  away, 
and  now  their  own  position  was  at  the  mercy  of  the 
English  artillery.  The  Boer  chief  resolved  to  retreat 
— up  that  mountain.  He  asked  for  volunteers,  and 
got  them. 

The  storming  party  crossed  the  swale  and  began 
to  creep  up  the  steeps,  "and  from  behind  rocks 
and  bushes  they  shot  at  the  soldiers  on  the  sky-line 
as  if  they  were  stalking  deer,"  says  Mr.  Russell. 
There  was  "continuous  musketry  fire,  steady  and 
fatal  on  the  one  side,  wild  and  ineffectual  on  the 
other."  The  Boers  reached  the  top,  and  began  to 
put  in  their  ruinous  work.  Presently  the  British 
"broke  and  fled  for  their  lives  down  the  rugged 
steep."  The  Boers  had  won  the  battle.  Result  in 
killed  and  wounded,  including  among  the  killed  the 
British  general : 

British  loss,  226  out  of  400  engaged. 

Boer  loss,  i  killed,  5  wounded. 

That  ended  the  war.  England  listened  to  reason, 
and  recognized  the  Boer  Republic — a  government 
which  has  never  been  in  any  really  awful  danger 
since,  until  Jameson  started  after  it  with  his  five 
hundred  "raw  young  fellows."  To  recapitulate: 

345 


MARK     TWAIN 

The  Boer  farmers  and  British  soldiers  fought  four 
battles,  and  the  Boers  won  them  all.  Result  of  the 
four,  in  killed  and  wounded: 

British  loss,  700  men. 

Boer  loss,  so  far  as  known,  23  men. 

It  is  interesting,  now,  to  note  how  loyally  Jameson 
and  his  several  trained  British  military  officers  tried 
to  make  their  battles  conform  to  precedent.  Mr. 
Garrett's  account  of  the  Raid  is  much  the  best  one  I 
have  met  with,  and  my  impressions  of  the  Raid  are 
drawn  from  that. 

When  Jameson  learned  that  near  Krugersdorp  he 
would  find  eight  hundred  Boers  waiting  to  dispute 
his  passage,  he  was  not  in  the  least  disturbed.  He 
was  feeling  as  he  had  felt  two  or  three  days  before, 
when  he  had  opened  his  campaign  with  a  historic 
remark  to  the  same  purport  as  the  one  with  which 
the  commander  of  the  Ninety-fourth  had  opened 
the  Boer-British  war  of  fourteen  years  before.  That 
Commander's  remark  was,  that  the  Boers  "would 
turn  tail  at  the  first  beat  of  the  big  drum. ' '  Jameson's 
was,  that  with  his  "raw  young  fellows"  he  could  kick 
the  (persons)  of  the  Boers  "all  round  the  Transvaal. " 
He  was  keeping  close  to  historic  precedent. 

Jameson  arrived  in  the  presence  of  the  Boers. 
They — according  to  precedent — were  not  visible.  It 
was  a  country  of  ridges,  depressions,  rocks,  ditches, 
moraines  of  mining-tailings — not  even  as  favorable 
for  cavalry  work  as  Laing's  Nek  had  been  in  the 
former  disastrous  days.  Jameson  shot  at  the  ridges 
and  rocks  with  his  artillery,  just  as  General  Colley 
had  done  at  the  Nek;  and  did  them  no  damage  and 

346 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

persuaded  no  Boer  to  show  himself.  Then  about 
a  hundred  of  his  men  formed  up  to  charge  the 
ridge — according  to  the  Fifty-eighth's  precedent  at 
the  Nek;  but  as  they  dashed  forward  they  opened 
out  in  a  long  line,  which  was  a  considerable  improve 
ment  on  the  Fifty-eighth's  tactics;  when  they  had 
gotten  to  within  two  hundred  yards  of  the  ridge  the 
concealed  Boers  opened  out  on  them  and  emptied 
twenty  saddles.  The  unwounded  dismounted  and 
fired  at  the  rocks  over  the  backs  of  their  horses ;  but 
the  return  fire  was  too  hot,  and  they  mounted  again, 
"and  galloped  back  or  crawled  away  into  a  clump  of 
reeds  for  cover,  where  they  were  shortly  afterward 
taken  prisoners  as  they  lay  among  the  reeds.  Some 
thirty  prisoners  were  so  taken,  and  during  the  night 
which  followed  the  Boers  carried  away  another  thirty 
killed  and  wounded — the  wounded  to  Krugersdorp 
hospital."  Sixty  per  cent,  of  the  assaulting  force 
disposed  of  —  according  to  Mr.  Garrett's  esti 
mate. 

It  was  according  to  Amajuba  precedent,  where 
the  British  loss  was  226  out  of  about  400  engaged. 

Also,  in  Jameson's  camp,  that  night,  "  there  lay 
about  30  wounded  or  otherwise  disabled"  men. 
Also  during  the  night  "some  30  or  40  young  fel 
lows  got  separated  from  the  command  and  straggled 
through  into  Johannesburg."  Altogether  a  possible 
150  men  gone,  out  of  his  530.  His  lads  had  fought 
valorously,  but  had  not  been  able  to  get  near  enough 
to  a  Boer  to  kick  him  around  the  Transvaal. 

At  dawn  the  next  morning  the  column  of  some 
thing  short  of  400  whites  resumed  its  march. 

347 


MARK    TWAIN 

Jameson's  grit  was  stubbornly  good;  indeed,  it  was 
always  that.  He  still  had  hopes.  There  was  a 
long  and  tedious  zigzagging  march  through  broken 
ground,  with  constant  harassment  from  the  Boers; 
and  at  last  the  column  "walked  into  a  sort  of  trap," 
and  the  Boers  "closed  in  upon  it."  "Men  and 
horses  dropped  on  all  sides.  In  the  column  the 
feeling  grew  that  unless  it  could  burst  through  the 
Boer  lines  at  this  point  it  was  done  for.  The  Maxims 
were  fired  until  they  grew  too  hot,  and,  water  failing 
for  the  cool  jacket,  five  of  them  jammed  and  went 
out  of  action.  The  seven-pounder  was  fired  until 
only  half  an  hour's  ammunition  was  left  to  fire  with. 
One  last  rush  was  made,  and  failed,  and  then  the 
Staats  Artillery  came  up  on  the  left  flank,  and  the 
game  was  up." 

Jameson  hoisted  a  white  flag  and  surrendered. 

There  is  a  story,  which  may  not  be  true,  about  an 
ignorant  Boer  farmer  there  who  thought  that  this 
white  flag  was  the  national  flag  of  England.  He 
had  been  at  Bronkhorst,  and  Laing's  Nek,  and  Ingogo 
and  Amajuba,  and  supposed  that  the  English  did 
not  run  up  their  flag  excepting  at  the  end  of  a 
fight. 

The  following  is  (as  I  understand  it)  Mr.  Gar- 
rett's  estimate  of  Jameson's  total  loss  in  killed  and 
wounded  for  the  two  days: 

"When  they  gave  in  they  were  minus  some  20 
per  cent,  of  combatants.  There  were  76  casualties. 
There  were  30  men  hurt  or  sick  in  the  wagons. 
There  were  27  killed  on  the  spot  or  mortally 
wounded."  Total,  133,  out  of  the  original  530. 

348 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

It  is  just  25  per  cent.1  This  is  a  large  improve 
ment  upon  the  precedents  established  at  Bronkhorst, 
Laing's  Nek,  Ingogo,  and  Amajuba,  and  seems  to 
indicate  that  Boer  marksmanship  is  not  so  good  now 
as  it  was  in  those  days.  But  there  is  one  detail  in 
which  the  Raid  episode  exactly  repeats  history.  By 
surrender  at  Bronkhorst,  the  whole  British  force 
disappeared  from  the  theater  of  war;  this  was  the 
case  with  Jameson's  force. 

In  the  Boer  loss,  also,  historical  precedent  is  fol 
lowed  with  sufficient  fidelity.  In  the  four  battles 
named  above,  the  Boer  loss,  so  far  as  known,  was  an 
average  of  six  men  per  battle,  to  the  British  average 
loss  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-five.  In  Jame 
son's  battles,  as  per  Boer  official  report,  the  Boer 
loss  in  killed  was  four.  Two  of  these  were  killed 
by  the  Boers  themselves,  by  accident,  the  other  by 
Jameson's  army — one  of  them  intentionally,  the  other 
by  a  pathetic  mischance.  "A  young  Boer  named 
Jacobz  was  moving  forward  to  give  a  drink  to  one 
of  the  wounded  troopers  (Jameson's)  after  the  first 
charge,  when  another  wounded  man,  mistaking  his  in 
tention,  shot  him."  There  were  three  or  four  wound 
ed  Boers  in  the  Krugersdorp  hospital,  and  apparently 
no  others  have  been  reported.  Mr.  Garrett,  "on  a 
balance  of  probabilities,  fully  accepts  the  official  ver 
sion,  and  thanks  Heaven  the  killed  was  not  larger." 

1  However,  I  judge  that  the  total  was  really  150;  for  the  number  of 
wounded  carried  to  Krugersdorp  hospital  was  53;  not  30,  as  Mr. 
Garrett  reports  it.  The  lady  whose  guest  I  was  in  Krugersdorp 
gave  me  the  figures.  She  was  head  nurse  from  the  beginning  of 
hostilities  (Jan.  ist)  until  the  professional  nurses  arrived,  Jan.  8th. 
Of  the  53,  "Three  or  four  were  Boers";  I  quote  her  words. 

349 


MARK     TWAIN 

As  a  military  man,  I  wish  to  point  out  what  seems 
to  me  to  be  military  errors  in  the  conduct  of  the 
campaign  which  we  have  just  been  considering.  I 
have  seen  active  service  in  the  field,  and  it  was  in 
the  actualities  of  war  that  I  acquired  my  training 
and  my  right  to  speak.  I  served  two  weeks  in  the 
beginning  of  our  Civil  War,  and  during  all  that  time 
commanded  a  battery  of  infantry  composed  of 
twelve  men.  General  Grant  knew  the  history  of 
my  campaign,  for  I  told  it  him.  I  also  told  him 
the  principle  upon  which  I  had  conducted  it ;  which 
was,  to  tire  the  enemy.  I  tired  out  and  disqualified 
many  battalions,  yet  never  had  a  casualty  myself 
nor  lost  a  man.  General  Grant  was  not  given  to 
paying  compliments,  yet  he  said  frankly  that  if  I 
had  conducted  the  whole  war  much  bloodshed  would 
have  been  spared,  and  that  what  the  army  might 
have  lost  through  the  inspiriting  results  of  collision 
in  the  field  would  have  been  amply  made  up  by  the 
liberalizing  influences  of  travel.  Further  indorse 
ment  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  necessary. 

Let  us  now  examine  history,  and  see  what  it 
teaches.  In  the  four  battles  fought  in  1881  and  the 
two  fought  by  Jameson,  the  British  loss  in  killed, 
wounded,  and  prisoners,  was  substantially  thirteen 
hundred  men;  the  Boer  loss,  as  far  as  is  ascertain- 
able,  was  about  thirty  men.  These  figures  show  that 
there  was  a  defect  somewhere.  It  was  not  in  the 
absence  of  courage.  I  think  it  lay  in  the  absence  of 
discretion.  The  Briton  should  have  done  one  thing 
or  the  other:  discarded  British  methods  and  fought 
the  Boer  with  Boer  methods,  or  augmented  his  own 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

force  until  —  using  British  methods  —  it  should  be 
large  enough  to  equalize  results  with  the  Boer. 

To  retain  the  British  method  requires  certain 
things,  determinable  by  arithmetic.  If,  for  argu 
ment's  sake,  we  allow  that  the  aggregate  of  1,716 
British  soldiers  engaged  in  the  four  early  battles  was 
opposed  by  the  same  aggregate  of  Boers,  we  have 
this  result :  the  British  loss  of  700  and  the  Boer  loss 
of  23  argues  that  in  order  to  equalize  results  in 
future  battles  you  must  make  the  British  force  thirty 
times  as  strong  as  the  Boer  force.  Mr.  Garrett 
shows  that  the  Boer  force  immediately  opposed  to 
Jameson  was  2,000,  and  that  there  were  6,000  more 
on  hand  by  the  evening  of  the  second  day.  Arith 
metic  shows  that  in  order  to  make  himself  the  equal 
of  the  8,000  Boers,  Jameson  should  have  had  240,000 
men,  whereas  he  merely  had  530  boys.  From  a  milita 
ry  point  of  view,  backed  by  the  facts  of  history,  I  con 
ceive  that  Jameson's  military  judgment  was  at  fault. 

Another  thing.  Jameson  was  encumbered  by  ar 
tillery,  ammunition,  and  rifles.  The  facts  of  the  bat 
tle  show  that  he  should  have  had  none  of  those 
things  along.  They  were  heavy,  they  were  in  his 
way,  they  impeded  his  march.  There  was  nothing 
to  shoot  at  but  rocks — he  knew  quite  well  that 
there  would  be  nothing  to  shoot  at  but  rocks — and 
he  knew  that  artillery  and  rifles  have  no  effect  upon 
rocks.  He  was  badly  overloaded  with  unessentials. 
He  had  eight  Maxims — a  Maxim  is  a  kind  of  Gatling, 
I  believe,  and  shoots  about  500  bullets  per  minute; 
he  had  one  12  ^-pounder  cannon  and  two  7 -pounders ; 
also,  145,000  rounds  of  ammunition.  He  worked 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  Maxims  so  hard  upon  the  rocks  that  five  of 
them  became  disabled — five  of  the  Maxims,  not  the 
rocks.  It  is  believed  that  upward  of  100,000  rounds 
of  ammunition  of  the  various  kinds  were  fired  during 
the  twenty-one  hours  that  the  battle  lasted.  One 
man  killed.  He  must  have  been  much  mutilated.  It 
was  a  pity  to  bring  those  futile  Maxims  along. 
Jameson  should  have  furnished  himself  with  a  battery 
of  Pudd'nhead  Wilson  maxims  instead.  They  are 
much  more  deadly  than  those  others,  and  they  are 
easily  carried,  because  they  have  no  weight. 

Mr.  Garrett — not  very  carefully  concealing  a 
smile — excuses  the  presence  of  the  Maxims  by  say 
ing  that  they  were  of  very  substantial  use  because 
their  sputtering  disordered  the  aim  of  the  Boers, 
and  in  that  way  saved  lives. 

Three  cannon,  eight  Maxims,  and  five  hundred 
rifles  yielded  a  result  which  emphasized  a  fact  which 
had  already  been  established — that  the  British  sys 
tem  of  standing  out  in  the  open  to  fight  Boers  who  are 
behind  rocks  is  not  wise,  not  excusable,  and  ought  to  be 
abandoned  for  something  more  efficacious.  For  the  pur 
pose  of  war  is  to  kill,  not  merely  to  waste  ammunition. 

If  I  could  get  the  management  of  one  of  those 
campaigns,  I  would  know  what  to  do,  for  I  have 
studied  the  Boer.  He  values  the  Bible  above  every 
other  thing.  The  most  delicious  edible  in  South 
Africa  is  "biltong."  You  will  have  seen  it  men 
tioned  in  Olive  Schreiner's  books.  It  is  what  our 
plainsmen  call  "jerked  beef."  It  is  the  Boer's  main 
standby.  He  has  a  passion  for  it,  and  he  is  right. 

If  I  had  the  command  of  the  campaign  I  would 
352 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

go  with  rifles  only,  no  cumbersome  Maxims  and 
cannon  to  spoil  good  rocks  with.  I  would  move 
surreptitiously  by  night  to  a  point  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  the  Boer  camp,  and  there  I  would 
build  up  a  pyramid  of  biltong  and  Bibles  fifty  feet 
high,  and  then  conceal  my  men  all  about.  In  the 
morning  the  Boers  would  send  out  spies,  and  then 
the  rest  would  come  with  a  rush.  I  would  surround 
them,  and  they  would  have  to  fight  my  men  on 
equal  terms,  in  the  open.  There  wouldn't  be  any 
Amajuba  results.1 

1  Just  as  I  am  finishing  this  book  an  unfortunate  dispute  has 
sprung  up  between  Dr.  Jameson  and  his  officers,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Colonel  Rhodes  on  the  other,  concerning  the  wording  of  a  note 
which  Colonel  Rhodes  sent  from  Johannesburg  by  a  cyclist  to  Jame 
son  just  before  hostilities  began  on  the  memorable  New-year's 
Day.  Some  of  the  fragments  of  this  note  were  found  on  the  battle 
field  after  the  fight,  and  these  have  been  pieced  together;  the 
dispute  is  as  to  what  words  the  lacking  fragments  contained.  Jame 
son  says  the  note  promised  him  a  reinforcement  of  three  hundred 
men  from  Johannesburg.  Colonel  Rhodes  denies  this,  and  says 
he  merely  promised  to  send  out  "some"  men  "to  meet  you." 

It  seems  a  pity  that  these  friends  should  fall  out  over  so  little  a 
thing.  If  the  300  had  been  sent,  what  good  would  it  have  done? 
In  twenty-one  hours  of  industrious  fighting,  Jameson's  530  men, 
with  8  Maxims,  3  cannon,  and  145,000  rounds  of  ammunition, 
killed  an  aggregate  of  one  Boer.  These  statistics  show  that  a  rein 
forcement  of  300  Johannesburgers,  armed  merely  with  muskets, 
would  have  killed,  at  the  outside,  only  a  little  over  a  half  of  another 
Boer.  This  would  not  have  saved  the  day.  It  would  not  even 
have  seriously  affected  the  general  result.  The  figures  show  clearly, 
and  with  mathematical  violence,  that  the  only  way  to  save  Jameson, 
or  even  give  him  a  fair  and  equal  chance  with  the  enemy,  was  for 
Johannesburg  to  send  him  240  Maxims,  90  cannon,  600  car-loads  of 
ammunition,  and  240,000  men.  Johannesburg  was  not  in  a  position 
to  do  this.  Johannesburg  has  been  called  very  hard  names  for  not 
reinforcing  Jameson.  But  in  every  instance  this  has  been  done  by 
two  classes  of  persons — people  who  do  not  read  history,  and  people, 
like  Jameson,  who  do  not  understand  what  it  means  after  they  have 
read  it. 

353 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE  BOER  AS  HE  REALLY  IS 

None  of  us  can  have  as  many  virtues  as  the  fountain-pen,  or  half  its  cussed  ness; 
but  we  can  try. — Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

THE  Duke  of  Fife  has  borne  testimony  that  Mr. 
Rhodes  deceived  him.  That  is  also  what  Mr. 
Rhodes  did  with  the  Reformers.  He  got  them  into 
trouble,  and  then  stayed  out  himself.  A  judicious 
man.  He  has  always  been  that.  As  to  this  there 
was  a  moment  of  doubt,  once.  It  was  when  he  was 
out  on  his  last  pirating  expedition  in  the  Matabele 
country.  The  cable  shouted  out  that  he  had  gone 
unarmed,  to  visit  a  party  of  hostile  chiefs.  It  was 
true,  too;  and  this  daredevil  thing  came  near  fetch 
ing  another  indiscretion  out  of  the  poet  laureate.  It 
would  have  been  too  bad,  for  when  the  facts  were 
all  in,  it  turned  out  that  there  was  a  lady  along,  too, 
and  she  also  was  unarmed. 

In  the  opinion  of  many  people  Mr.  Rhodes  is 
South  Africa;  others  think  he  is  only  a  large  part  of 
it.  These  latter  consider  that  South  Africa  consists 
of  Table  Mountain,  the  diamond-mines,  the  Johan^ 
nesburg  gold-fields,  and  Cecil  Rhodes.  The  gold- 
fields  are  wonderful  in  every  way.  In  seven  or  eight 
years  they  built  up,  in  a  desert,  a  city  of  a  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  counting  white  and  black 
together;  and  not  the  ordinary  mining  city  of 

354 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

wooden  shanties,  but  a  city  made  out  of  lasting 
material.  Nowhere  in  the  world  is  there  such  a 
concentration  of  rich  mines  as  at  Johannesburg.  Mr. 
Bonamici,  my  manager  there,  gave  me  a  small  gold 
brick  with  some  statistics  engraved  upon  it  which 
record  the  output  of  gold  from  the  early  days  to 
July,  1895,  and  exhibit  the  strides  which  have  been 
made  in  the  development  of  the  industry;  in  1888 
the  output  was  $4,162,440;  the  output  of  the  next 
five  and  a  half  years  was  (total)  $17,585,894;  for  the 
single  year  ending  with  June,  1895,  it  was  $4 5, 5 53, 700. 

The  capital  which  has  developed  the  mines  came 
from  England,  the  mining  engineers  from  America. 
This  is  the  case  with  the  diamond-mines  also.  South 
Africa  seems  to  be  the  heaven  of  the  American 
scientific  mining  engineer.  He  gets  the  choicest 
places,  and  keeps  them.  His  salary  is  not  based 
upon  what  he  would  get  in  America,  but  apparently 
upon  what  a  whole  family  of  him  would  get  there. 

The  successful  mines  pay  great  dividends,  yet  the 
rock  is  not  rich,  from  a  California  point  of  view. 
Rock  which  yields  ten  or  twelve  dollars  a  ton  is  con 
sidered  plenty  rich  enough.  It  is  troubled  with  base 
metals  to  such  a  degree  that  twenty  years  ago  it 
would  have  been  only  about  half  as  valuable  as  it  is 
now;  for  at  that  time  there  was  no  paying  way  of 
getting  anything  out  of  such  rock  but  the  coarser- 
grained  "free"  gold;  but  the  new  cyanide  process 
has  changed  all  that,  and  the  gold-fields  of  the  world 
now  deliver  up  fifty  million  dollars'  worth  of  gold 
per  year  which  would  have  gone  into  the  tailing-pile 
under  the  former  conditions. 

355 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  cyanide  process  was  new  to  me,  and  full  of 
interest;  and  among  the  costly  and  elaborate  mining 
machinery  there  were  fine  things  which  were  new  to 
me,  but  I  was  already  familiar  with  the  rest  of  the 
details  of  the  gold-mining  industry.  I  had  been  a 
gold-miner  myself,  in  my  day,  and  knew  substantially 
everything  that  those  people  knew  about  it,  except 
how  to  make  money  at  it.  But  I  learned  a  good 
deal  about  the  Boers  there,  and  that  was  a  fresh  sub 
ject.  What  I  heard  there  was  afterward  repeated  to 
me  in  other  parts  of  South  Africa.  Summed  up — 
according  to  the  information  thus  gained — this  is 
the  Boer: 

He  is  deeply  religious,  profoundly  ignorant,  dull, 
obstinate,  bigoted,  uncleanly  in  his  habits,  hospit 
able,  honest  in  his  dealings  with  the  whites,  a  hard 
master  to  his  black  servant,  lazy,  a  good  shot,  good 
horseman,  addicted  to  the  chase,  a  lover  of  political 
independence,  a  good  husband  and  father,  not  fond 
of  herding  together  in  towns,  but  liking  the  seclusion 
and  remoteness  and  solitude  and  empty  vastness  and 
silence  of  the  veldt ;  a  man  of  a  mighty  appetite,  and 
not  delicate  about  what  he  appeases  it  with — well 
satisfied  with  pork  and  Indian  corn  and  biltong,  re 
quiring  only  that  the  quantity  shall  not  be  stinted; 
willing  to  ride  a  long  journey  to  take  a  hand  in  a 
rude  all-night  dance  interspersed  with  vigorous  feed 
ing  and  boisterous  jollity,  but  ready  to  ride  twice  as 
far  for  a  prayer-meeting;  proud  of  his  Dutch  and 
Huguenot  origin  and  its  religious  and  military  his 
tory;  proud  of  his  race's  achievements  in  South 
Africa,  its  bold  plunges  into  hostile  and  uncharted 

356 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

deserts  in  search  of  free  solitudes  unvexed  by  the 
pestering  and  detested  English,  also  its  victories  over 
the  natives  and  the  British;  proudest  of  all,  of  the 
direct  and  effusive  personal  interest  which  the  Deity 
has  always  taken  in  its  affairs.  He  cannot  read,  he 
cannot  write;  he  has  one  or  two  newspapers,  but  he 
is  apparently  not  aware  of  it ;  until  latterly  he  had  no 
schools,  and  taught  his  children  nothing;  news  is  a 
term  which  has  no  meaning  to  him,  and  the  thing 
itself  he  cares  nothing  about.  He  hates  to  be  taxed 
and  resents  it.  He  has  stood  stock-still  in  South 
Africa  for  two  centuries  and  a  half,  and  would  like 
to  stand  still  till  the  end  of  time,  for  he  has  no 
sympathy  with  Uitlander  notions  of  progress.  He 
is  hungry  to  be  rich,  for  he  is  human;  but  his 
preference  has  been  for  riches  in  cattle,  not  in  fine 
clothes  and  fine  houses  and  gold  and  diamonds. 
The  gold  and  the  diamonds  have  brought  the  godless 
stranger  within  his  gates,  also  contamination  and 
broken  repose,  and  he  wishes  that  they  had  never 
been  discovered. 

I  think  that  the  bulk  of  those  details  can  be  found 
in  Olive  Schreiner's  books,  and  she  would  not  be 
accused  of  sketching  the  Boer's  portrait  with  an 
unfair  hand. 

Now  what  would  you  expect  from  that  unpromis 
ing  material?  What  ought  you  to  expect  from  it? 
Laws  inimical  to  religious  liberty?  Yes.  Laws  de 
nying  representation  and  suffrage  to  the  intruder? 
Yes.  Laws  unfriendly  to  educational  institutions? 
Yes.  Laws  obstructive  of  gold  production?  Yes. 
Discouragement  of  railway  expansion?  Yes.  Laws 

357 


MARK    TWAIN 

heavily  taxing  the  intruder  and  overlooking  the  Boer? 
Yes. 

The  Uitlander  seems  to  have  expected  something 
very  different  from  all  that.  I  do  not  know  why. 
Nothing  different  from  it  was  rationally  to  be  ex 
pected.  A  round  man  cannot  be  expected  to  fit  a 
square  hole  right  away.  He  must  have  time  to 
modify  his  shape.  The  modification  had  begun  in  a 
detail  or  two,  before  the  Raid,  and  was  making  some 
progress.  It  has  made  further  progress  since.  There 
are  wise  men  in  the  Boer  Government,  and  that 
accounts  for  the  modification;  the  modification  of 
the  Boer  mass  has  probably  not  begun  yet.  If  the 
heads  of  the  Boer  Government  had  not  been  wise 
men  they  would  have  hanged  Jameson,  and  thus 
turned  a  very  commonplace  pirate  into  a  holy  martyr. 
But  even  their  wisdom  has  its  limits,  and  they  will 
hang  Mr.  Rhodes  if  they  ever  catch  him.  That  will 
round  him  and  complete  him  and  make  him  a  saint. 
He  has  already  been  called  by  all  other  titles  that 
symbolize  human  grandeur,  and  he  ought  to  rise  to 
this  one,  the  grandest  of  all.  It  will  be  a  dizzy  jump 
from  where  he  is  now,  but  that  is  nothing,  it  will  land 
him  in  good  company  and  be  a  pleasant  change  for 
him. 

Some  of  the  things  demanded  by  the  Johannes- 
burgers'  Manifesto  have  been  conceded  since  the 
days  of  the  Raid,  and  the  others  will  follow  in  time, 
no  doubt.  It  was  most  fortunate  for  the  miners  of 
Johannesburg  that  the  taxes  which  distressed  them  so 
much  were  levied  by  the  Boer  Government,  instead 
of  by  their  friend  Rhodes  and  his  Chartered  Com- 

358 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

pany  of  highwaymen,  for  these  latter  take  half  of 
whatever  their  mining  victims  find,  they  do  not  stop 
at  a  mere  percentage.  If  the  Johannesburg  miners 
were  under  their  jurisdiction  they  would  be  in  the 
poor-house  in  twelve  months. 

I  have  been  under  the  impression  all  along  that  I 
had  an  unpleasant  paragraph  about  the  Boers  some 
where  in  my  note-book,  and  also  a  pleasant  one.  I 
have  found  them  now.  The  unpleasant  one  is  dated 
at  an  interior  village,  and  says: 

Mr.  Z  called.  He  is  an  English  Afrikander;  is  an  old  resident, 
and  has  a  Boer  wife.  He  speaks  the  language,  and  his  profes 
sional  business  is  with  the  Boers  exclusively.  He  told  me  that 
the  ancient  Boer  families  in  the  great  region  of  which  this  village 
is  the  commercial  center  are  falling  victims  to  their  inherited 
indolence  and  dullness  in  the  materialistic  latter-day  race  and 
struggle,  and  are  dropping  one  by  one  into  the  grip  of  the 
usurer — getting  hopelessly  in  debt — and  are  losing  their  high 
place  and  retiring  to  second  and  lower.  The  Boer's  farm  does 
not  go  to  another  Boer  when  he  loses  it,  but  to  a  foreigner. 
Some  have  fallen  so  low  that  they  sell  their  daughters  to  the 
blacks. 

Under  date  of  another  South  African  town  I  find 
the  note  which  is  creditable  to  the  Boers: 

Dr.  X  told  me  that  in  the  Kafir  war  fifteen  hundred  Kafirs 
took  refuge  in  a  great  cave  in  the  mountains  about  ninety  miles 
north  of  Johannesburg,  and  the  Boers  blocked  up  the  entrance 
and  smoked  them  to  death.  Dr.  X  has  been  in  there  and  seen 
the  great  array  of  bleached  skeletons — one  a  woman  with  the 
skeleton  of  a  child  hugged  to  her  breast. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  savages  must  go.  The 
white  man  wants  their  lands,  and  all  must  go  except 
ing  such  percentage  of  them  as  he  will  need  to  do 
his  work  for  him  upon  terms  to  be  determined  by 

359 


MARK    TWAIN 

himself.  Since  history  has  removed  the  element  of 
guesswork  from  this  matter  and  made  it  certainty, 
the  humanest  way  of  diminishing  the  black  popula 
tion  should  be  adopted,  not  the  old  cruel  ways  of  the 
past.  Mr.  Rhodes  and  his  gang  have  been  following 
the  old  ways.  They  are  chartered  to  rob  and  slay, 
and  they  lawfully  do  it,  but  not  in  a  compassionate 
and  Christian  spirit.  They  rob  the  Mashonas  and 
the  Matabeles  of  a  portion  of  their  territories  in  the 
hallowed  old  style  of  "purchase"  for  a  song,  and 
then  they  force  a  quarrel  and  take  the  rest  by  the 
strong  hand.  They  rob  the  natives  of  their  cattle 
under  the  pretext  that  all  the  cattle  in  the  country 
belonged  to  the  king  whom  they  have  tricked  and 
assassinated.  They  issue  "regulations"  requiring 
the  incensed  and  harassed  natives  to  work  for  the 
white  settlers,  and  neglect  their  own  affairs  to  do  it. 
This  is  slavery,  and  is  several  times  worse  than  was 
the  American  slavery  which  used  to  pain  England  so 
much;  for  when  this  Rhodesian  slave  is  sick,  super 
annuated,  or  otherwise  disabled,  he  must  support 
himself  or  starve — his  master  is  under  no  obligation 
to  support  him. 

The  reduction  of  the  population  by  Rhodesian 
methods  to  the  desired  limit  is  a  return  to  the  old- 
time  slow-misery  and  lingering-death  system  of  a 
discredited  time  and  a  crude  "civilization."  We 
humanely  reduce  an  overplus  of  dogs  by  swift  chloro 
form;  the  Boer  humanely  reduced  an  overplus  of 
blacks  by  swift  suffocation;  the  nameless  but  right- 
hearted  Australian  pioneer  humanely  reduced  his 
overplus  of  aboriginal  neighbors  by  a  sweetened 

360 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

swift  death  concealed  in  a  poisoned  pudding.  All 
these  are  admirable,  and  worthy  of  praise;  you  and 
I  would  rather  suffer  either  of  these  deaths  thirty 
times  over  in  thirty  successive  days  than  linger  out 
one  of  the  Rhodesian  twenty-year  deaths,  with  its 
daily  burden  of  insult,  humiliation,  and  forced  labor 
for  a  man  whose  entire  race  the  victim  hates. 
Rhodesia  is  a  happy  name  for  that  land  of  piracy 
and  pillage,  and  puts  the  right  stain  upon  it. 

Several  long  journeys  gave  us  experience  of  the 
Cape  Colony  railways;  easy-riding,  fine  cars;  all 
the  conveniences;  thorough  cleanliness;  comfortable 
beds  furnished  for  the  night  trains.  It  was  in  the 
first  days  of  June,  and  winter;  the  daytime  was 
pleasant,  the  night-time  nice  and  cold.  Spinning 
along  all  day  in  the  cars  it  was  ecstasy  to  breathe  the 
bracing  air  and  gaze  out  over  the  vast  brown  solitudes 
of  the  velvet  plains,  soft  and  lovely  near  by,  still 
softer  and  lovelier  further  away,  softest  and  loveliest 
of  all  in  the  remote  distances,  where  dim  island-hills 
seemed  afloat,  as  in  a  sea — a  sea  made  of  dream- 
stuff  and  flushed  with  colors  faint  and  rich ;  and  dear 
me,  the  depth  of  the  sky,  and  the  beauty  of  the 
strange  new  cloud-forms,  and  the  glory  of  the  sun 
shine,  the  lavishness,  the  wastefulness  of  it!  The 
vigor  and  freshness  and  inspiration  of  the  air  and  the 
sun — well,  it  was  all  just  as  Olive  Schreiner  had 
made  it  in  her  books. 

To  me  the  veldt,  in  its  sober  winter  garb,  was  sur 
passingly  beautiful.  There  were  unlevel  stretches 
where  it  was  rolling  and  swelling,  and  rising  and 
subsiding,  and  sweeping  superbly  on  and  on,  and 

361 


MARK    TWAIN 

still  on  and  on  like  an  ocean,  toward  the  far-away 
horizon,  its  pale  brown  deepening  by  delicately 
graduated  shades  of  rich  orange,  and  finally  to  pur 
ple  and  crimson  where  it  washed  against  the  wooded 
hills  and  naked  red  crags  at  the  base  of  the  sky. 

Everywhere,  from  Cape  Town  to  Kimberley,  and 
from  Kimberley  to  Port  Elizabeth  and  East  London, 
the  towns  were  well  populated  with  tamed  blacks; 
tamed  and  Christianized  too,  I  suppose,  for  they 
wore  the  dowdy  clothes  of  our  Christian  civilization. 
But  for  that,  many  of  them  would  have  been  re 
markably  handsome.  These  fiendish  clothes,  to 
gether  with  the  proper  lounging  gait,  good-natured 
face,  happy  air,  and  easy  laugh,  made  them  precise 
counterparts  of  our  American  blacks;  often  where 
all  the  other  aspects  were  strikingly  and  harmoni 
ously  and  thrillingly  African,  a  flock  of  these  natives 
would  intrude,  looking  wholly  out  of  place,  and  spoil 
it  all,  making  the  thing  a  grating  discord,  half 
African  and  half  American. 

One  Sunday  in  King  William's  Town  a  score  of 
colored  women  came  mincing  across  the  great  barren 
square  dressed — oh,  in  the  last  perfection  of  fashion, 
and  newness,  and  expensiveness,  and  showy  mixture 
of  unrelated  colors — all  just  as  I  had  seen  it  so 
often  at  home;  and  in  their  faces  and  their  gait  was 
that  languishing,  aristocratic,  divine  delight  in  their 
finery  which  was  so  familiar  to  me,  and  had  always 
been  such  a  satisfaction  to  my  eye  and  my  heart.  I 
seemed  among  old,  old  friends ;  friends  of  fifty  years, 
and  I  stopped  and  cordially  greeted  them.  They 
broke  into  a  good-fellowship  laugh,  flashing  their 

362 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

white  teeth  upon  me,  and  all  answered  at  once.  I 
did  not  understand  a  word  they  said.  I  was  aston 
ished;  I  was  not  dreaming  that  they  would  answer 
in  anything  but  American. 

The  .voices,  too,  of  the  African  women,  were 
familiar  to  me — sweet  and  musical,  just  like  those 
of  the  slave-women  of  my  early  days.  I  followed 
a  couple  of  them  all  over  the  Orange  Free  State — 
no,  over  its  capital,  Bloemfontein — to  hear  their 
liquid  voices  and  the  happy  ripple  of  their  laughter. 
Their  language  was  a  large  improvement  upon  Amer 
ican.  Also  upon  the  Zulu.  It  had  no  Zulu  click 
in  it;  and  it  seemed  to  have  no  angles  or  corners, 
no  roughness,  no  vile  s's  or  other  hissing  sounds, 
but  was  very,  very  mellow  and  rounded  and  flowing. 

In  moving  about  the  country  in  the  trains,  I  had 
opportunity  to  see  a  good  many  Boers  of  the  veldt. 
One  day  at  a  village  station  a  hundred  of  them  got 
out  of  the  third-class  cars  to  feed.  Their  clothes 
were  very  interesting.  For  ugliness  of  shapes,  and 
for  miracles  of  ugly  colors  inharmoniously  associated, 
they  were  a  record. 

The  effect  was  nearly  as  exciting  and  interesting 
as  that  produced  by  the  brilliant  and  beautiful 
clothes  and  perfect  taste  always  on  view  at  the  Indian 
rail  way -stations.  One  man  had  corduroy  trousers 
of  a  faded  chewing-gum  tint.  And  they  were  new — 
showing  that  this  tint  did  not  come  by  calamity, 
but  was  intentional;  the  very  ugliest  color  I  have 
ever  seen.  A  gaunt,  shackly  country  lout  six  feet 
high,  in  battered  gray  slouched  hat  with  wide  brim, 
and  old  resin-colored  breeches,  had  on  a  hideous 

363 


MARK    TWAIN 

brand-new  woolen  coat  which  was  imitation  tiger- 
skin — wavy  broad  stripes  of  dazzling  yellow  and  deep 
brown.  I  thought  he  ought  to  be  hanged,  and  asked 
the  station-master  if  it  could  be  arranged.  He  said 
no;  and  not  only  that,  but  said  it  rudely;  said  it 
with  a  quite  unnecessary  show  of  feeling.  Then 
he  muttered  something  about  my  being  a  jackass, 
and  walked  away  and  pointed  me  out  to  people, 
and  did  everything  he  could  to  turn  public  sentiment 
against  me.  It  is  what  one  gets  for  trying  to  do 
good. 

In  the  train  that  day  a  passenger  told  me  some 
more  about  Boer  life  out  in  the  lonely  veldt.  He 
said  the  Boer  gets  up  early  and  sets  his  "niggers" 
at  their  tasks  (pasturing  the  cattle,  and  watching 
them);  eats,  smokes,  drowses,  sleeps;  toward  even 
ing  superintends  the  milking,  etc.;  eats,  smokes, 
drowses;  goes  to  bed  at  early  candle-light  in  the 
fragrant  clothes  he  (and  she)  have  worn  all  day  and 
every  week-day  for  years.  I  remember  that  last 
detail,  in  Olive  Schreiner's  Story  of  an  African  Farm. 
And  the  passenger  told  me  that  the  Boers  were 
justly  noted  for  their  hospitality.  He  told  me  a 
story  about  it.  He  said  that  his  grace  the  Bishop 
of  a  certain  See  was  once  making  a  business  progress 
through  the  tavernless  veldt,  and  one  night  he 
stopped  with  a  Boer;  after  supper  was  shown  to 
bed;  he  undressed,  weary  and  worn  out,  and  was 
soon  sound  asleep;  in  the  night  he  woke  up  feeling 
crowded  and  suffocated,  and  found  the  old  Boer  and 
his  fat  wife  in  bed  with  him,  one  on  each  side,  with 
all  their  clothes  on,  and  snoring.  He  had  to  stay 

364 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

there  and  stand  it — awake  and  suffering — until 
toward  dawn,  when  sleep  again  fell  upon  him  for  an 
hour.  Then  he  woke  again.  The  Boer  was  gone, 
but  the  wife  was  still  at  his  side. 

Those  Reformers  detested  that  Boer  prison;  they 
were  not  used  to  cramped  quarters  and  tedious 
hours,  and  weary  idleness,  and  early  to  bed,  and 
limited  movement,  and  arbitrary  and  irritating  rules, 
and  the  absence  of  the  luxuries  which  wealth  com 
forts  the  day  and  the  night  with.  The  confinement 
told  upon  their  bodies  and  their  spirits;  still,  they 
were  superior  men,  and  they  made  the  best  that  was 
to  be  made  of  the  circumstances.  Their  wives  smug 
gled  delicacies  to  them,  which  helped  to  smooth  the 
way  down  for  the  prison  fare. 

In  the  train  Mr.  B.  told  me  that  the  Boer  jail- 
guards  treated  the  black  prisoners — even  political 
ones — mercilessly.  An  African  chief  and  his  follow 
ing  had  been  kept  there  nine  months  without  trial, 
and  during  all  that  time  they  had  been  without 
shelter  from  rain  and  sun.  He  said  that  one  day  the 
guards  put  a  big  black  in  the  stocks  for  dashing  his 
soup  on  the  ground ;  they  stretched  his  legs  painfully 
wide  apart,  and  set  him  with  his  back  downhill;  he 
could  not  endure  it,  and  put  back  his  hands  upon 
the  slope  for  a  support.  The  guard  ordered  him  to 
withdraw  the  support — and  kicked  him  in  the  back. 
4 'Then,"  said  Mr.  B.,  "the  powerful  black  wrenched 
the  stocks  asunder  and  went  for  the  guard ;  a  Reform 
prisoner  pulled  him  off,  and  thrashed  the  guard 
himself." 

365 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

DIAMONDS  AND   CECIL  RHODES 

The  very  ink  with  which  all  history  is  written  is  merely  fluid  prejudice. 

—Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

There  isn't  a  Parallel  of  Latitude  but  thinks  it  would  have  been  the  Equator 
if  it  had  had  its  rights.— Pudd'nhead  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

NEXT  to  Mr.  Rhodes,  to  me  the  most  interesting 
convulsion  of  nature  in  South  Africa  was  the 
diamond-crater.  The  Rand  gold-fields  are  a  stu 
pendous  marvel,  and  they  make  all  other  gold-fields 
small,  but  I  was  not  a  stranger  to  gold-mining;  the 
veldt  was  a  noble  thing  to  see,  but  it  was  only 
another  and  lovelier  variety  of  our  Great  Plains ;  the 
natives  were  very  far  from  being  uninteresting,  but 
they  were  not  new;  and  as  for  the  towns,  I  could 
find  my  way  without  a  guide  through  the  most  of 
them  because  I  had  learned  the  streets,  under  other 
names,  in  towns  just  like  them  in  other  lands;  but 
the  diamond-mine  was  a  wholly  fresh  thing,  a  splen 
did  and  absorbing  novelty.  Very  few  people  in  the 
world  have  seen  the  diamond  in  its  home.  It  has 
but  three  or  four  homes  in  the  world,  whereas  gold 
has  a  million.  It  is  worth  while  to  journey  around 
the  globe  to  see  anything  which  can  truthfully  be 
called  a  novelty,  and  the  diamond-mine  is  the  greatest 
and  most  select  and  restricted  novelty  which  the 
globe  has  in  stock. 

The  Kimberley  diamond  deposits  were  discovered 

366 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

about  1869,  I  think.  When  everything  is  taken  into 
consideration,  the  wonder  is  that  they  were  not  dis 
covered  five  thousand  years  ago  and  made  familiar 
to  the  African  world  for  the  rest  of  time.  For  this 
reason  the  first  diamonds  were  found  on  the  surface 
of  the  ground.  They  were  smooth  and  limpid,  and 
in  the  sunlight  they  vomited  fire.  They  were  the 
very  things  which  an  African  savage  of  any  era 
would  value  above  every  other  thing  in  the  world 
excepting  a  glass  bead.  For  two  or  three  centuries 
we  have  been  buying  his  lands,  his  cattle,  his  neigh 
bor,  and  any  other  thing  he  had  for  sale,  for  glass 
beads :  and  so  it  is  strange  that  he  was  indifferent  to 
the  diamonds — for  he  must  have  picked  them  up 
many  and  many  a  time.  It  would  not  occur  to  him  to 
try  to  sell  them  to  whites,  of  course,  since  the  whites 
already  had  plenty  of  glass  beads,  and  more  fashion 
ably  shaped,  too,  than  these;  but  one  would  think 
that  the  poorer  sort  of  black,  who  could  not  afford 
real  glass,  would  have  been  humbly  content  to 
decorate  himself  with  the  imitation,  and  that  pres 
ently  the  white  trader  would  notice  the  things,  and 
dimly  suspect,  and  carry  some  of  them  home,  and 
find  out  what  they  were,  and  at  once  empty  a  multi 
tude  of  fortune-hunters  into  Africa.  There  are  many 
strange  things  in  human  history;  one  of  the  strangest 
is  that  the  sparkling  diamonds  lay  there  so  long 
without  exciting  any  one's  interest. 

The  revelation  came  at  last  by  accident.  In  a 
Boer's  hut  out  in  the  wide  solitude  of  the  plains,  a 
traveling  stranger  noticed  a  child  playing  with  a 
bright  object,  and  was  told  it  was  a  piece  of  glass 

367 


MARK     TWAIN 

which  had  been  found  in  the  veldt.  The  stranger 
bought  it  for  a  trifle  and  carried  it  away;  and  being 
without  honor,  made  another  stranger  believe  it  was 
a  diamond,  and  so  got  $125  out  of  him  for  it,  and 
was  as  pleased  with  himself  as  if  he  had  done  a 
righteous  thing.  In  Paris  the  wronged  stranger  sold 
it  to  a  pawnshop  for  $10,000,  who  sold  it  to  a  coun 
tess  for  $90,000,  who  sold  it  to  a  brewer  for  $800,000, 
who  traded  it  to  a  king  for  a  dukedom  and  a  pedigree, 
and  the  king  "put  it  up  the  spout. "f  I  know  these 
particulars  to  be  correct. 

The  news  flew  around,  and  the  South  African 
diamond  boom  began.  The  original  traveler — the 
dishonest  one — now  remembered  that  he  had  once 
seen  a  Boer  teamster  chocking  his  wagon-wheel  on 
a  steep  grade  with  a  diamond  as  large  as  a  football, 
and  he  laid  aside  his  occupations  and  started  out  to 
hunt  for  it,  but  not  with  the  intention  of  cheating 
anybody  out  of  $125  with  it,  for  he  had  reformed. 

We  now  come  to  matters  more  didactic.  Dia 
monds  are  not  embedded  in  rock  ledges  fifty  miles 
long,  like  the  Johannesburg  gold,  but  are  distributed 
through  the  rubbish  of  a  filled-up  well,  so  to  speak. 
The  well  is  rich,  its  walls  are  sharply  defined;  out 
side  of  the  walls  are  no  diamonds.  The  well  is  a 
crater,  and  a  large  one.  Before  it  had  been  meddled 
with,  its  surface  was  even  with  the  level  plain,  and 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

there  was  no  sign  to  suggest  that  it  was  there.  The 
pasturage  covering  the  surface  of  the  Kimberley 
crater  was  sufficient  for  the  support  of  a  cow,  and 
the  pasturage  underneath  was  sufficient  for  the  sup 
port  of  a  kingdom;  but  the  cow  did  not  know  it, 
and  lost  her  chance. 

The  ;  Kimberley  crater  is  roomy  enough  to  admit 
the  Roman  Coliseum;  the  bottom  of  the  crater  has 
not  been  reached,  and  no  one  can  tell  how  far  down 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  it  goes.  Originally,  it 
was  a  perpendicular  hole  packed  solidly  full  of  blue 
rock  or  cement,  and  scattered  through  that  blue 
mass,  like  raisins  in  a  pudding,  were  the  diamonds. 
As  deep  down  in  the  earth  as  the  blue  stuff  extends, 
so  deep  will  the  diamonds  be  found. 

There  are  three  or  four  other  celebrated  craters 
near  by — a  circle  three  miles  in  diameter  would 
inclose  them  all.  They  are  owned  by  the  De  Beers 
Company,  a  consolidation  of  diamond  properties 
arranged  by  Mr.  Rhodes  twelve  or  fourteen  years 
ago.  The  De  Beers  owns  other  craters;  they  are 
under  the  grass,  but  the  De  Beers  knows  where  they 
are,  and  will  open  them  some  day,  if  the  market 
should  require  it. 

Originally,  the  diamond  deposits  were  the  prop 
erty  of  the  Orange  Free  State;  but  a  judicious 
"rectification"  of  the  boundary  line  shifted  them 
over  into  the  British  territory  of  Cape  Colony.  A 
high  official  of  the  Free  State  told  me  that  the  sum 
of  $400,000  was  handed  to  his  commonwealth  as  a 
compromise,  or  indemnity,  or  something  of  the  sort, 
and  that  he  thought  his  commonwealth  did  wisely 

369 


MARK    TWAIN 

to  take  the  money  and  keep  out  of  a  dispute,  since 
the  power  was  all  on  the  one  side  and  the  weakness 
all  on  the  other.  The  De  Beers  Company  dig  out 
$400,000  worth  of  diamonds  per  week,  now.  The 
Cape  got  the  territory,  but  no  profit;  for  Mr. 
Rhodes  and  the  Rothschilds  and  the  other  De  Beers 
people  own  the  mines,  and  they  pay  no  taxes. 

In  our  day  the  mines  are  worked  upon  scientific 
principles,  under  the  guidance  of  the  ablest  mining- 
engineering  talent  procurable  in  America.  There 
are  elaborate  works  for  reducing  the  blue  rock  and 
passing  it  through  one  process  after  another  until 
every  diamond  it  contains  has  been  hunted  down 
and  secured.  I  watched  the  "concentrators"  at 
work — big  tanks  containing  mud  and  water  and 
invisible  diamonds — and  was  told  that  each  could 
stir  and  churn  and  properly  treat  three  hundred  car 
loads  of  mud  per  day — sixteen  hundred  pounds  to  the 
car-load — and  reduce  it  to  three  car-loads  of  slush.  I 
saw  the  three  car-loads  of  slush  taken  to  the  "pul- 
sators"  and  there  reduced  to  a  quarter  of  a  load  of 
nice  clean  dark-colored  sand.  Then  I  followed  it  to 
the  sorting-tables  and  saw  the  men  deftly  and  swiftly 
spread  it  out  and  brush  it  about  and  seize  the  dia 
monds  as  they  showed  up.  I  assisted,  and  once  I 
found  a  diamond  half  as  large  as  an  almond.  It  is 
an  exciting  kind  of  fishing,  and  you  feel  a  fine  thrill 
of  pleasure  every  time  you  detect  the  glow  of  one 
of  those  limpid  pebbles  through  the  veil  of  dark 
sand.  I  would  like  to  spend  my  Saturday  holidays 
in  that  charming  sport  every  now  and  then.  Of 
course  there  are  disappointments.  Sometimes  you 

37o 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

find  a  diamond  which  is  not  a  diamond;  it  is  only  a 
quartz  crystal  or  some  such  worthless  thing.  The 
expert  can  generally  distinguish  it  from  the  precious 
stone  which  it  is  counterfeiting;  but  if  he  is  in  doubt 
he  lays  it  on  a  flatiron  and  hits  it  with  a  sledge 
hammer.  If  it  is  a  diamond  it  holds  its  own;  if  it 
is  anything  else,  it  is  reduced  to  powder.  I  liked 
that  experiment  very  much,  and  did  not  tire  of 
repetitions  of  it.  It  was  full  of  enjoyable  apprehen 
sions,  unmarred  by  any  personal  sense  of  risk.  The 
De  Beers  concern  treats  8,000  car-loads — about 
6,000  tons — of  blue  rock  per  day,  and  the  result  is 
three  pounds  of  diamonds.  Value,  uncut,  $50,000 
to  $70,000.  After  cutting,  they  will  weigh  consider 
ably  less  than  a  pound,  but  will  be  worth  four  or 
five  times  as  much  as  they  were  before. 

All  the  plain  around  that  region  is  spread  over,  a 
foot  deep,  with  blue  rock,  placed  there  by  the  com 
pany,  and  looks  like  a  plowed  field.  Exposure  for 
a  length  of  time  makes  the  rock  easier  to  work  than 
it  is  when  it  comes  out  of  the  mine.  If  mining 
should  cease  now,  the  supply  of  rock  spread  over 
those  fields  would  furnish  the  usual  eight  thousand 
car-loads  per  day  to  the  separating-works  during  three 
years.  The  fields  are  fenced  and  watched;  and  at 
night  they  are  under  the  constant  inspection  of  lofty 
electric  searchlight.  They  contain  fifty  or  sixty 
million  dollars'  worth  of  diamonds,  and  there  is  an 
abundance  of  enterprising  thieves  around. 

In  the  dirt  of  the  Kimberley  streets  there  is  much 
hidden  wealth.  Some  time  ago  the  people  were 
granted  the  privilege  of  a  free  wash-up.  There  was 

37i 


MARK    TWAIN 

a  general  rush,  the  work  was  done  with  thorough 
ness,  and  a  good  harvest  of  diamonds  was  gathered. 

The  deep  mining  is  done  by  natives.  There  are 
many  hundreds  of  them.  They  live  in  quarters 
built  around  the  inside  of  a  great  compound.  They 
are  a  jolly  and  good-natured  lot,  and  accommo 
dating.  They  performed  a  war-dance  for  us,  which 
was  the  wildest  exhibition  I  have  ever  seen.  They 
are  not  allowed  outside  of  the  compound  during 
their  term  of  service — three  months,  I  think  it  is, 
as  a  rule.  They  go  down  the  shaft,  stand  their 
watch,  come  up  again,  are  searched,  and  go  to  bed 
or  to  their  amusements  in  the  compound;  and  this 
routine  they  repeat,  day  in  and  day  out. 

It  is  thought  that  they  do  not  now  steal  many 
diamonds — successfully.  They  used  to  swallow 
them,  and  find  other  ways  of  concealing  them,  but 
the  white  man  found  ways  of  beating  their  various 
games.  One  man  cut  his  leg  and  shoved  a  diamond 
into  the  wound,  but  even  that  project  did  not  suc 
ceed.  When  they  find  a  fine  large  diamond  they  are 
more  likely  to  report  it  than  to  steal  it,  for  in  the 
former  case  they  get  a  reward,  and  in  the  latter  they 
are  quite  apt  to  merely  get  into  trouble.  Some 
years  ago,  in  a  mine  not  owned  by  the  De  Beers,  a 
black  found  what  has  been  claimed  to  be  the  largest 
diamond  known  to  the  world's  history;  and  as  a 
reward  he  was  released  from  service  and  given  a 
blanket,  a  horse,  and  five  hundred  dollars.  It  made 
him  a  Vanderbilt.  He  could  buy  four  wives,  and 
have  money  left.  Four  wives  are  an  ample  support 
for  a  native.  With  four  wives  he  is  wholly  inde- 

372 


FOLLOWING     THE     EQUATOR 

pendent,   and   need   never   do    a    stroke    of   work 
again. 

That  great  diamond  weighs  971  carats.  Some 
say  it  is  as  big  as  a  piece  of  alum,  others  say  it  is  as 
large  as  a  bite  of  rock-candy,  but  the  best  authorities 
agree  that  it  is  almost  exactly  the  size  of  a  chunk  of 
ice.  But  those  details  are  not  important;  and  in 
my  opinion  not  trustworthy.  It  has  a  flaw  in  it, 
otherwise  it  would  be  of  incredible  value.  As  it  is, 
it  is  held  to  be  worth  $2,000,000.  After  cutting  it 
ought  to  be  worth  from  $5,000,000  to  $8,000,000, 
therefore  persons  desiring  to  save  money  should  buy 
it  now.  It  is  owned  by  a  syndicate,  and  apparently 
there  is  no  satisfactory  market  for  it.  It  is  earning 
nothing;  it  is  eating  its  head  off.  Up  to  this  time 
it  has  made  nobody  rich  but  the  native  who  found  it. 

He  found  it  in  a  mine  which  was  being  worked  by 
contract.  That  is  to  say,  a  company  had  bought 
the  privilege  of  taking  from  the  mine  5,000,000  car 
loads  of  blue  rock,  for  a  sum  down  and  a  royalty. 
Their  speculation  had  not  paid ;  but  on  the  very  day 
that  their  privilege  ran  out  that  native  found  the 
two-million-dollar  diamond  and  handed  it  over  to 
them.  Even  the  diamond  culture  is  not  without  its 
romantic  episodes. 

The  Koh-i-Noor  is  a  large  diamond,  and  valuable; 
but  it  cannot  compete  in  these  matters  with  three 
which — according  to  legend — are  among  the  crown 
trinkets  of  Portugal  and  Russia.  One  of  these  is 
held  to  be  worth  $20,000,000;  another,  $25,000,000, 
and  the  third  something  over  $28,000,000. 

Those  are  truly  wonderful  diamonds,  whether  they 
373 


MARK    TWAIN 

exist  or  not;  and  yet  they  are  of  but  little  impor 
tance  by  comparison  with  the  one  wherewith  the 
Boer  wagoner  chocked  his  wheel  on  that  steep  grade 
as  heretofore  referred  to.  In  Kimberley  I  had  some 
conversation  with  the  man  who  saw  the  Boer  do  that 
— an  incident  which  had  occurred  twenty-seven  or 
twenty-eight  years  before  I  had  my  talk  with  him. 
He  assured  me  that  that  diamond's  value  could  have 
been  over  a  billion  dollars,  but  not  under  it.  I 
believed  him,  because  he  had  devoted  twenty-seven 
years  to  hunting  for  it,  and  was  in  a  position  to 
know. 

A  fitting  and  interesting  finish  to  an  examination 
of  the  tedious  and  laborious  and  costly  processes 
whereby  the  diamonds  are  gotten  out  of  the  deeps  of 
the  earth  and  freed  from  the  base  stuffs  which  im 
prison  them  is  the  visit  to  the  De  Beers  offices  in 
the  town  of  Kimberley,  where  the  result  of  each  day's 
mining  is  brought  every  day,  and  weighed,  assorted, 
valued,  and  deposited  in  safes  against  shipping-day. 
An  unknown  and  unaccredited  person  cannot  get 
into  that  place;  and  it  seemed  apparent  from  the 
generous  supply  of  warning  and  protective  and 
prohibitory  signs  that  were  posted  all  about  that 
not  even  the  known  and  accredited  can  steal  dia 
monds  there  without  inconvenience. 

We  saw  the  day's  output — shining  little  nests  of 
diamonds,  distributed  a  foot  apart,  along  a  counter, 
each  nest  reposing  upon  a  sheet  of  white  paper. 
That  day's  catch  was  about  $70,000  worth.  In  the 
course  of  a  year  half  a  ton  of  diamonds  pass  under 
the  scales  there  and  sleep  on  that  counter;  the  re- 

374 


FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR 

suiting  money  is  $18,000,000  or  $20,000,000.  Profit, 
about  $12,000,000. 

Young  girls  were  doing  the  sorting — a  nice,  clean, 
dainty,  and  probably  distressing  employment.  Every 
day  ducal  incomes  sift  and  sparkle  through  the 
fingers  of  those  young  girls;  yet  they  go  to  bed  at 
night  as  poor  as  they  were  when  they  got  up  in  the 
morning.  The  same  thing  next  day,  and  all  the  days. 

They  are  beautiful  things,  those  diamonds,  in  their 
native  state.  They  are  of  various  shapes;  they  have 
flat  surfaces,  rounded  borders,  and  never  a  sharp 
edge.  They  are  of  all  colors  and  shades  of  color, 
from  dew-drop  white  to  actual  black;  and  their 
smooth  and  rounded  surfaces  and  contours,  variety 
of  color,  and  transparent  limpidity,  make  them  look 
like  piles  of  assorted  candies.  A  very  light  straw 
color  is  their  commonest  tint.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  these  uncut  gems  must  be  more  beautiful  than 
any  cut  ones  could  be;  but  when  a  collection  of  cut 
ones  was  brought  out,  I  saw  my  mistake.  Nothing 
is  so  beautiful  as  a  rose  diamond  with  the  light 
playing  through  it,  except  that  uncostly  thing  which 
is  just  like  it — wavy  sea-water  with  the  sunlight 
playing  through  it  and  striking  a  white-sand  bottom. 

Before  the  middle  of  July  we  reached  Cape  Town, 
and  the  end  of  our  African  journeyings.  And  well 
satisfied;  for,  towering  above  us  was  Table  Moun 
tain — a  reminder  that  we  had  now  seen  each  and 
all  of  the  great  features  of  South  Africa  except  Mr. 
Cecil  Rhodes.  I  realize  that  that  is  a  large  excep 
tion.  I  know  quite  well  that  whether  Mr.  Rhodes  is 
the  lofty  and  worshipful  patriot  and  statesman  that 

375 


MARK    TWAIN 

multitudes  believe  him  to  be,  or  Satan  come  again, 
as  the  rest  of  the  world  account  him,  he  is  still  the 
most  imposing  figure  in  the  British  Empire  outside 
of  England.  When  he  stands  on  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  his  shadow  falls  to  the  Zambesi.  He  is  the 
only  colonial  in  the  British  dominions  whose  goings 
and  comings  are  chronicled  and  discussed  under  all 
the  globe's  meridians,  and  whose  speeches,  undipped, 
are  cabled  from  the  ends  of  the  earth;  and  he  is 
the  only  unroyal  outsider  whose  arrival  in  London 
can  compete  for  attention  with  an  eclipse. 

That  he  is  an  extraordinary  man,  and  not  an 
accident  of  fortune,  not  even  his  dearest  South 
African  enemies  were  willing  to  deny,  so  far  as  I 
heard  them  testify.  The  whole  South  African  world 
seemed  to  stand  in  a  kind  of  shuddering  awe  of  him, 
friend  and  enemy  alike.  It  was  as  if  he  were  deputy 
God  on  the  one  side,  deputy  Satan  on  the  other, 
proprietor  of  the  people,  able  to  make  them  or 
ruin  them  by  his  breath,  worshiped  by  many,  hated 
by  many,  but  blasphemed  by  none  among  the 
judicious,  and  even  by  the  indiscreet  in  guarded 
whispers  only. 

What  is  the  secret  of  his  formidable  supremacy? 
One  says  it  is  his  prodigious  wealth — a  wealth  whose 
drippings  in  salaries  and  in  other  ways  support 
multitudes  and  make  them  his  interested  and  loyal 
vassals;  another  says  it  is  his  personal  magnetism 
and  his  persuasive  tongue,  and  that  these  hypnotize 
and  make  happy  slaves  of  all  that  drift  within  the 
circle  of  their  influence;  another  says  it  is  his 
majestic  ideas,  his  vast  schemes  for  the  territorial 

376 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

aggrandizement  of  England,  his  patriotic  and  unself 
ish  ambition  to  spread  her  beneficent  protection 
and  her  just  rule  over  the  pagan  wastes  of  Africa 
and  make  luminous  the  African  darkness  with  the 
glory  of  her  name;  and  another  says  he  wants  the 
earth  and  wants  it  for  his  own,  and  that  the  belief 
that  he  will  get  it  and  let  his  friends  in  on  the  ground 
floor  is  the  secret  that  rivets  so  many  eyes  upon  him 
and  keeps  him  in  the  zenith  where  the  view  is 
unobstructed. 

One  may  take  his  choice.  They  are  all  the  same 
price.  One  fact  is  sure:  he  keeps  his  prominence 
and  a  vast  following,  no  matter  what  he  does.  He 
1  'deceives"  the  Duke  of  Fife— it  is  the  Duke's 
word — but  that  does  not  destroy  the  Duke's  loyalty 
to  him.  He  tricks  the  Reformers  into  immense 
trouble  with  his  Raid,  but  the  most  of  them  believe 
he  meant  well.  He  weeps  over  the  harshly  taxed 
Johannesburgers  and  makes  them  his  friends;  at  the 
same  time  he  taxes  his  Charter  settlers  fifty  per  cent., 
and  so  wins  their  affection  and  their  confidence  that 
they  are  squelched  with  despair  at  every  rumor  that 
the  Charter  is  to  be  annulled.  He  raids  and  robs 
and  slays  and  enslaves  the  Matabele  and  gets  worlds 
of  Charter-Christian  applause  for  it.  He  has  be 
guiled  England  into  buying  Charter  waste-paper  for 
Bank  of  England  notes,  ton  for  ton,  and  the  ravished 
still  burn  incense  to  him  as  the  Eventual  God  of 
Plenty.  He  has  done  everything  he  could  think  of 
to  pull  himself  down  to  the  ground;  he  has  done 
more  than  enough  to  pull  sixteen  common-run  great 
men  down;  yet  there  he  stands,  to  this  day,  upon 

377 


MARK    TWAIN 

his  dizzy  summit  under  the  dome  of  the  sky,  an 
apparent  permanency,  the  marvel  of  the  time,  the 
mystery  of  the  age,  an  Archangel  with  wings  to 
half  the  world,  Satan  with  a  tail  to  the  other  half. 
I  admire  him,  I  frankly  confess  it;  and  when  his 
time  comes  I  shall  buy  a  piece  of  the  rope  for  a 
keepsake. 

378 


CONCLUSION 

I  have  traveled  more  than  any  one  else,  and  I  have  noticed  that  even  the  angels 
•peak  English  with  an  accent.— Pudd'nheod  Wilson's  New  Calendar. 

I  SAW  Table  Rock,  anyway—a  majestic  pile.  It 
is  three  thousand  feet  high.  It  is  also  seventeen 
thousand  feet  high.  These  figures  may  be  relied 
upon.  I  got  them  in  Cape  Town  from  the  two  best- 
informed  citizens,  men  who  had  made  Table  Rock  the 
study  of  their  lives.  And  I  saw  Table  Bay,  so  named 
for  its  levelness.  I  saw  the  Castle — built  by  the 
Dutch  East  India  Company  three  hundred  years 
ago — where  the  Commanding  General  lives;  I  saw 
St.  Simon's  Bay,  where  the  Admiral  lives.  I  saw  the 
Government,  also  the  Parliament,  where  they  quar 
reled  in  two  languages  when  I  was  there,  and  agreed 
in  none.  I  saw  the  club.  I  saw  and  explored  the 
beautiful  sea-girt  drives  that  wind  about  the  moun 
tains  and  through  the  paradise  where  the  villas  are. 
Also  I  saw  some  of  the  fine  old  Dutch  mansions, 
pleasant  homes  of  the  early  times,  pleasant  homes 
to-day,  and  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  their  hospi 
talities. 

|  And  just  before  I  sailed  I  saw  in  one  of  them  a 
quaint  old  picture  which  was  a  link  in  a  curious 
romance — a  picture  of  a  pale,  intellectual  young 
man  in  a  pink  coat  with  a  high  black  collar.  It  was 

379 


MARK    TWAIN 

a  portrait  of  Dr.  James  Barry,  a  military  surgeon 
who  came  out  to  the  Cape  fifty  years  ago  with  his 
regiment.  He  was  a  wild  young  fellow,  and  was 
guilty  of  various  kinds  of  misbehavior.  He  was 
several  times  reported  to  headquarters  in  England, 
and  it  was  in  each  case  expected  that  orders  would 
come  out  to  deal  with  him  promptly  and  severely, 
but  for  some  mysterious  reason  no  orders  of  any 
kind  ever  came  back — nothing  came  but  just  an 
impressive  silence.  This  made  him  an  imposing 
and  uncanny  wonder  to  the  town. 

Next,  he  was  promoted — away  up.  He  was  made 
Medical  Superintendent  General,  and  transferred  to 
India.  Presently  he  was  back  at  the  Cape  again  and 
at  his  escapades  once  more.  There  were  plenty  of 
pretty  girls,  but  none  of  them  caught  him,  none  of 
them  could  get  hold  of  his  heart;  evidently  he  was 
not  a  marrying  man.  And  that  was  another  marvel, 
another  puzzle,  and  made  no  end  of  perplexed  talk. 
Once  he  was  called  in  the  night,  an  obstetric  service, 
to  do  what  he  could  for  a  woman  who  was  believed 
to  be  dying.  He  was  prompt  and  scientific,  and 
saved  both  mother  and  child.  There  are  other 
instances  of  record  which  testify  to  his  mastership  of 
his  profession;  and  many  which  testify  to  his  love 
of  it  and  his  devotion  to  it.  Among  other  adven 
tures  of  his  was  a  duel  of  a  desperate  sort,  fought 
with  swords,  at  the  Castle.  He  killed  his  man. 

The  child  heretofore  mentioned  as  having  been 
saved  by  Dr.  Barry  so  long  ago,  was  named  for  him, 
and  still  lives  in  Cape  Town.  He  had  Dr.  Barry's 
portrait  painted,  and  gave  it  to  the  gentleman  in 

380 


FOLLOWING    THE     EQUATOR 

whose  old  Dutch  house  I  saw  it — the  quaint  figure  in 
pink  coat  and  high  black  collar. 

The  story  seems  to  be  arriving  nowhere.  But  that 
is  because  I  have  not  finished.  Dr.  Barry  died  in 
Cape  Town  thirty  years  ago.  It  was  then  discovered 
that  he  was  a  woman. 

The  legend  goes  that  inquiries — soon  silenced — 
developed  the  fact  that  she  was  a  daughter  of  a 
great  English  house,  and  that  that  was  why  her  Cape 
wildnesses  brought  no  punishment  and  got  no  notice 
when  reported  to  the  government  at  home.  Her 
name  was  an  alias.  She  had  disgraced  herself  with 
her  people;  so  she  chose  to  change  her  name  and 
her  sex  and  take  a  new  start  in  the  world. 

We  sailed  on  the  i$th  of  July  in  the  Norman,  a 
beautiful  ship,  perfectly  appointed.  The  voyage  to 
England  occupied  a  short  fortnight,  without  a  stop 
except  at  Madeira.  A  good  and  restful  voyage  for 
tired  people,  and  there  were  several  of  us.  I  seemed 
to  have  been  lecturing  a  thousand  years,  though  it 
was  only  a  twelvemonth,  and  a  considerable  number 
of  the  others  were  Reformers  who  were  fagged  out 
with  their  five  months  of  seclusion  in  the  Pretoria 
prison. 

Our  trip  around  the  earth  ended  at  the  Southamp 
ton  pier,  where  we  embarked  thirteen  months  before. 
It  seemed  a  fine  and  large  thing  to  have  accom 
plished — the  circumnavigation  of  this  great  globe 
in  that  little  time,  and  I  was  privately  proud  of  it. 
For  a  moment.  Then  came  one  of  those  vanity- 
snubbing  astronomical  reports  from  the  Observatory 
people,  whereby  it  appeared  that  another  great  body 

381 


MARK    TWAIN 

of  light  had  lately  %med  up  in  the  remotenesses  of 
space  which  was  traveling  at  a  gait  which  would 
enable  it  to  do  all  that  I  had  done  in  a  minute  and 
a  half.  Human  pride  is  not  worth  while;  there  is 
always  something  lying  in  wait  to  take  the  wind  out 
of  it. 

382 


THE   END 


40 09 


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